WEEK 12

Soft Opening

We had the Soft Opening this Wed (4/9/2025) and had our faculty come and play test our build.

Art

With Soft Opening scheduled this week, the art team’s top priority was visual polish. To better capture the feeling of being underwater, the team implemented shader-driven caustic effects and volumetric fog for depth and distance. A subtle “wobble” effect was layered onto the environment to simulate underwater lens distortion, and ambient lighting was fine-tuned to create ghostly underwater light shafts. These atmospheric enhancements significantly boosted environmental immersion and realism.

Programming

A major programming task was restructuring the camera system. It was completely reworked to provide smoother transitions, more intuitive control, and better responsiveness. Additionally, the team successfully integrated the previously separate virtual and physical build modes into a unified scene. Support for new joint types such as ball-socket connections was added, increasing the creative freedom of the building experience.

UI/UX

UI’s are ready to go, the UI/UX team completed the high-fidelity design for all core interfaces. This included onboarding screens, in-game instructions, and UI overlays for both children and adults.

Onboarding UI Design:

Originally, an interactive tutorial was considered, but due to time constraints, the team decided to implement a written starter guide instead.