{"id":164,"date":"2025-09-26T22:11:42","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T22:11:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/?p=164"},"modified":"2025-09-26T22:24:26","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T22:24:26","slug":"week-5-the-start-of-playtest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/week-5-the-start-of-playtest\/","title":{"rendered":"WEEK 5 &#8211; The Start of Playtest"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Demo Reel<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-video aligncenter\"><video controls preload=\"auto\" src=\"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/19Tcma5ubmvNvnOWAOaFW2j68Et0v6Z9G\/view?usp=sharing\"><\/video><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Introduction<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>This week, we successfully delivered a demo featuring voice-to-voice interaction, including Athena and Poseidon\u2019s personalities, as well as art assets of Athena to enrich the experience. On the design side, we also iterated through our concepts and established a new direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Progress<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Art<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>We are continuing to implement Athena\u2019s modeling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Tech<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The tech system can now adjust characters\u2019 tones to create more natural conversations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We also had a brief meeting with <strong>Charlie Agriogianis<\/strong>, an ETC alumnus and member of <em>Chatbot-AI<\/em>, a previous ETC project that faced similar technical challenges. From Charlie, we received many useful tips, including:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Storing pre-responses in prompts so the AI can better mimic characters\u2019 tones.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Setting up a <strong>log system<\/strong> to record all dialogue during playtests.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Implementing a <strong>context state machine<\/strong> once the user journey is defined.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Using additional API calls to capture the player\u2019s tone of voice.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Overall, the meeting with Charlie clarified many of our technical challenges. Moving forward, the tech team will continue developing the <strong>animation state machine<\/strong>, which will help players better understand context during playtests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/BrianCharlie-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-171\" srcset=\"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/BrianCharlie-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/BrianCharlie-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/BrianCharlie-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/BrianCharlie-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/BrianCharlie-2048x1536.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Design<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>On the design side, we consulted with <strong>Brenda Harger<\/strong>, ETC faculty, who pointed out that our experience was missing a <strong>hook<\/strong>\u2014the element that grabs the audience\u2019s attention and makes them care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Originally, our idea was for players to take the role of a prophet interacting with Athena and Poseidon to decide the name of Athens. However, during an instructors\u2019 meeting, we realized that we need <strong>actual feedback from players<\/strong> to understand what is truly entertaining, rather than making assumptions ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a result, we prioritized conducting our first playtest. The feedback we received has already been valuable in shaping the experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"591\" src=\"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image-1-1024x591.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-161\" srcset=\"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image-1-1024x591.png 1024w, https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image-1-300x173.png 300w, https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image-1-768x443.png 768w, https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image-1-1536x887.png 1536w, https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image-1-2048x1183.png 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What&#8217;s next<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Next week, we will: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Host our first official playtest day. <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Continue developing the dialogue system. <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Prepare art assets for the characters.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Demo Reel Introduction This week, we successfully delivered a demo featuring voice-to-voice interaction, including Athena and Poseidon\u2019s personalities, as well as art assets of Athena to enrich the experience. On the design side, we also iterated through our concepts and established a new direction. Progress Art We are continuing to implement Athena\u2019s modeling. Tech The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dev-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":175,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164\/revisions\/175"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}