During week 5, our team continued working on the existing mini-game prototype, refine the old gameplay through playtesting, and devised an additional gameplay on technical aspect. We also established the game theme, crafted a narrative for each mini-game, and combined them into a coherent and complete story.

Technical development progress + Ball Balancing Playtest

Our programmer focused on the accelerometer and gyroscope, allowing the watch to detect users’ hand motion and degree of balance. To test this, we created a “ball balancing” prototype where players control a ball on the watch screen using the balance of their arm. The mission is to reach the destination without letting the ball fall off the screen. If your arm is not in a horizontal balance, your ball will fall off the screen from the position your arm is lean to. The outcome is, even a short distance, you need to be very careful and strain your arm, since even a small tilt, the ball may fall easily.

Truth or Lie (A combination of truth or dare + who is undercover) playtest

In combination with game and heart rate and a bluffing game without any objects, we first try out the typical “who Is the undercover”, but the heart rate was not change a lot: you are not telling a big “lie” even if you are the one with different words, since it does not involve too much made up things. So we try to combine the “who is undercover” with the “truth or dare” and come up with a new gameplay about bluffing.

In the beginning of the game, each player is randomly assigned to tell a “truth” or a “lie.” When asked a question, they have to give a “true” or “false” answer based on their assigned role. The roles are different: if you are assigned “truth,” you need to make your story feel exaggerated but true; if you are assigned “lie,” it needs to be a believable lie. We playtested this game five times and found it fun. Making up a quick, logical story for lies and making true stories sound doubtful for truths was a challenge. Interestingly, people’s heart rates went up when they completely made up a story, especially when questioned by others. But, at the same time, sharing a true story in response to a tough question also raised heart rates, showing that people were really telling the truth. We will keep testing this game and add more questions to make it more fun to play again and again.

Theming

Currently we are embedding heart rate, accelerometer and gyroscope, DB detection to the mini game, and we would like to create an overall theme with set all games to the same story. A spy theme between agent Otters and groundhog family, is what we come up with. As an agent otter, players infiltrate the groundhog family, facing challenges where groundhog technology (Apple Watch) tracks their status. Familiarizing themselves with the technology(watch), an expert agent should monitor their body status even in intense situations to tackle spy missions effectively. The theme connects all mini-games within the story.

-2024.2.16