After last week’s faculty meeting, we identified several new design directions and began refining them into more concrete implementations. This week we focused on two main goals.
First, we integrated all assets — including animations, VFX, models, materials, and sound — into the demo to enable a more complete playtest experience. Second, we reorganized our project direction and summarized our current progress in preparation for next Monday’s halves presentation.
Progress Overview
I. Demo Progress
The team collaborated very efficiently throughout the week. Our current demo now includes a complete gameplay flow: triggering the magic circle, activating the fire inside the cabinet, and assembling three paintings to summon water that extinguishes the fire.
While the team achieved strong productivity, several challenges emerged during development.
The first challenge lies in asset integration. Because our project combines virtual elements with physical objects, the process requires extensive iteration and calibration to ensure that virtual interactions and triggers align accurately with the spatial design.
The second challenge concerns design complexity. Although we have a relatively clear narrative direction and cooperative two-player mechanics, we discovered that expanding the experience becomes difficult under the current design framework.
II. Playtest Feedback
To address both development and design issues, we conducted playtests using the integrated demo. We focused on evaluating three aspects:
1. Whether players could successfully complete the gameplay flow.
2. Whether players experienced moments of surprise and delight.
3. Whether the narrative experience was clear to players.
Overall, most participants were able to complete the designed level progression. Players generally found the interactions visually impressive and interesting, but many reported confusion in understanding certain mechanics.
At the narrative level, because our world blends virtual and narrative layers, the storytelling structure became overly complex, causing varying degrees of confusion at different stages of gameplay.
To enhance the sense of surprise and allow greater design flexibility, we decided to reduce the complexity and emphasis of the narrative and instead focus more on developing engaging interactive experiences. Taking the halves presentation as an opportunity, we reorganized our current progress and, based on this reflection, clarified our project goals and final deliverables.
What’s Next
- Prepare and refine the halves presentation slides
- Brainstorm new design ideas based on the updated direction
- Replan the development schedule following the halves presentation