This week, we visited South Fayette Middle School for our second playtest in their CAVERN space.
To prepare for the playtest, we made the following updates:

• Added a new version of the audience seats and re-textured them with the South Fayette logo
• Implemented a ranking board at the end of the game to show results and scores
• Adjusted the audience seating positions
• Added energy weighting to the cheering system based on the number of players per team

Soft Opening Preparations

For Friday’s soft opening, we aimed to polish the game as much as possible. Based on feedback and our team goals, we focused on:

• Allowing players to choose their team through the web page
• Updating the ending scene
• Displaying rankings for the drivers, the fastest driver, the best crowd, and the winning team
• Making the winning team permanently accelerate
• Allowing the winning crowd to continue cheering after their victory
• Adding fireworks to the environment
• Creating a new UI interface for the mobile controller
• Reducing the cheering energy needed to inspire the driver from 100 to 66 and removing energy decay over time—leading to more frequent boosts in larger groups and introducing a new strategy around storing energy
• Increasing the ball value when players on the same team tap the cheering button simultaneously

Art Updates

This week, we improved several visual elements:

• Created new helmets for the racing cars
• Remade the Mercedes logo and implemented it as the team’s VFX
• Polished track textures and added new details such as logos and tire marks
• Added wheel emission effects to the cars
• Completed the onboarding storyboard and turned it into a narrated video explaining gameplay (with José as the commentator)

Focus Moving Forward

By this week, our gameplay loop is fully complete. For the remainder of the semester, our primary focus will be on enhancing the art and VFX to improve player understanding and further support our core goal: creating a multiplayer cooperative racing experience.