Demo Reel

Introduction

This week, we conducted our first public playtest. As we shift our design approach, instead of trying to perfect the design on paper, we decided to show our demo early and gather user feedback to guide the next steps. We’re glad to see that the playtest was effective. The main feedback we received from our six playtesters is summarized below, and for more details, you can check our playtest feedback here.

Progress

Art

We are continuing to implement both Athena’s and Poseidon’s models. Feedback indicates that Poseidon looks too young. To better match his personality and voice — mean, ruthless, and a tough warrior — we are considering emphasizing his masculinity: stronger jawline, beard, pronounced nose line, forehead wrinkles, and slightly larger nose and ears to reflect age.

Tech

We implemented a log system to record what players say during the playtest, allowing us to trace and analyze interactions. Subtitles can now scroll, and players can control when to start speaking to avoid overly sensitive voice detection issues. For the next week,

Art Integration: Athena’s and Poseidon’s art assets will be ready for integration. The lip-sync plugin can also start animating lips and eyes when the characters are speaking.

AI Control: Investigate ways to more precisely control AI outputs with inputs. The deliverable will be a documentation for designers to reference.

Experience Polishing: Improve AI behavior, such as enabling the AI to speak first and reducing overly verbose sentences.

Design

We’ve been adjusting prompts to strengthen our characters’ personalities, enhance voice performance, and enrich the overall experience. Some examples can be found below:

We will also put efforts on the following:

• Experience Completion: Athena currently lacks a fully developed personality, and there is insufficient background information. More interjections may be needed, and most importantly, dialogue rules should be established so that when prompts are tested or adjusted, designers can determine whether the results are correct.

• Pipeline & Collaboration: The pipeline and collaboration between designers and programmers have been formally established. Team members can now share and adjust work in the same space while clearly understanding each other’s responsibilities.

What’s next

After the playtest, we gathered the feedback and held an internal meeting to prioritize improvements before half. For now, our focus is on completeness rather than polish. We also plan to showcase a live demo by half.