As the development window for Snail Trails has come to a close over the last week of the development cycle, the team has had time to reflect on the prototype in regards to the original concept, what features we managed to include in the game, and what we would add if the game was to be developed further into a fully fledged game. We took inspiration from user testing as well as our own ideas for what sort of things should/could be added or what direction the game could go in.

We are confident in the current direction of the game is and believe we achieved many of our goals. The game contains two play modes (time trials and competitive multiplayer), but both could be further expanded on with more tracks and more features such as powerups in multiplayer. We've also considered the potentiality of new game modes to take advantage of the competitive aspects of the game, with less linear tracks.

As the most popular feature in testing was the time trials, the focus has been on improving them for the remainder of our development time. This saw a big feature added which was medallions for each of the track, adding a goal for the player to achieve and compare their skills to. Unfortunately the medallions don't persist after the play session is ended, so adding that feature would be a major next step. Adding online leaderboards would also be another great feature for  time trials as it would give a competitive edge to the game mode. Overall we are very content with how time trials turned out.

The competitive side of the game, which was the primary original concept, would need the greatest work and focus put into it if it was a fully fledged game. As this side of the game wasn't able to be tested as much during the development, the focus shifted onto time trials. With one of our main goals for Snail Trails being competitive multiplayer, an aspirational goal would be to make this more accessible to players, where it is currently restricted to just local 1v1 on the same keyboard.  Features such as online multiplayer and controller support would go a long way to benefiting this side of the game. Due to problems we faced building on WebGl, we weren't able to use the preferred input system on Unity which would have allowed up to 4 players to battle it out on the track. We believe the competitive aspect of our game would be at its strongest with 4 snails on the track at once, adding to the chaos, competitiveness and overall fun - particularly if we could balance the mechanic of snails bouncing off each other.

Visually we were extremely happy with how our vaporwave aesthetic walls turned out, adding a crucial element to the game mechanically by giving players an actual wall to bounce off, plus substantially improving the visual style of the game. We were hoping to add a skybox of the Milky Way in as well, but unfortunately had difficult with the lighting settings, where either the track was too dark or the snail and slime were too bright.

We also ran out of time for one other major feature - sound effects. We intended to include sounds for speed, bouncing off walls, overloading the snailometer, indicating when the ticker would reset, and for each powerup, however in the end our focus on other elements left this by the wayside. The team was ecstatic to be allowed to include synth music from a local musician in the game, which adds some audio flair.

Adding these future features and aspirational goals could see Snail Trails turn into a competitive, addictive and fast paced game which we believe could be very popular based on how well it was received.