Production
During the second week, we had a short break for Labor Day on Monday. After the break, we began identifying the current issues with our games through internal playtesting, especially since it had been a while since we last played together over the summer.
After playtesting, we identified several problems and negative experiences:
- Only the person speaking knows how much time is left, while others have no idea.
- During each phase, the heart rate of the current speaker is shown on all players’ watches, but many players assume the heart rate is their own since no one knows who “Agent 1/2/3/4” is.
- Players want the option to extend or end the story-sharing phase early, but there is currently no way to do so.
- The feedback of heart rate changes is too subtle; players tend to rely on facial expressions to determine truth or lies rather than checking their watch.
- The Apple Watch Ultra often gets stuck when entering the game.
- The Apple Watch Ultra is unresponsive to several UI elements.
- The onboarding process on the small watch screen is still counterintuitive.
To address the issues mentioned above, the program, design, and art teams have created a to-do list to resolve these problems
Design & Art
- Shift the onboarding experience to the companion phone app, including joining/picking a room, otter selection, individual/room name customization, tutorial, and other related features.
- Create high-fidelity designs for the phone app, with a focus on the onboarding experience before the mid-term.
- Add sound and haptic feedback in specific game phases, such as high heart rate detection, time’s up, phase changes, or when it’s your turn.
Programming
- Implement the feedback system on the watch.
- Develop the front-end for the companion app’s onboarding process.
- Refine the room-joining experience.
- Debug issues with the Apple Watch Ultra if time permits.
