{"id":224,"date":"2025-11-12T18:57:27","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T18:57:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/?p=224"},"modified":"2025-11-12T23:56:34","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T23:56:34","slug":"week-10-playtest-day-and-design-iteration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/week-10-playtest-day-and-design-iteration\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 10 &#8211; Playtest Day and Design Iteration"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Wrapping up what us did after half, it&#8217;s playtest Day! Check the demo <a href=\"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/12o9vKJt-3IQgH_cLa-Pl2O49gRjEYHXH\/view?usp=drive_link\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/12o9vKJt-3IQgH_cLa-Pl2O49gRjEYHXH\/view?usp=drive_link\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We have recevied over 30 playtesters feedback, from middle school students to elder people. This creates diversity in our playtest feedback. Some playtest takeaways we want to share here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\">Experience Rating<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Overall Enjoyment: <strong>3.7<\/strong> \/ 5<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Naturalness of Conversation: <strong>2.8<\/strong> \/ 5<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\"><strong>What Makes Players Laugh \/ Engage<\/strong><br><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>When technology feels <strong>clever or breakable<\/strong> (AI restrictions, weird questions)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>When <strong>characters feel alive<\/strong> (Poseidon\u2019s reactions, myth references, AI-AI banter)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>When <strong>AI connects personally<\/strong> (reads names, praises users, reacts to life stories)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\"><strong>What Confuses Players<\/strong><br><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Unclear <strong>player role<\/strong>: why they are in this world<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Opening question too open-ended; needs a <strong>guided prompt<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Mute system UI<\/strong> unclear \u2014 redesign input area and layout<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Dialogue too <strong>repetitive or abstract<\/strong>\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\"><strong>Art &amp; Animation<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Poseidon age looks good; Athena appears <strong>too young<\/strong> (makeup, facial tone)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Add more <strong>facial &amp; body animations<\/strong> for expressiveness<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Place both in <strong>one shared scene<\/strong>, avoid \u201cZoom call\u201d feeling<br><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Some of our long-standing questions, like the repetitive dialogue issue, are still on the list. But at this point in the semester, our focus has shifted. Instead of polishing details like voice adjustments or fine-tuning responses, we\u2019re prioritizing getting the entire experience playable from start to finish. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Having the full experience ready is more valuable right now \u2014 it helps everyone see what\u2019s missing in terms of art assets and technical features, while conversation polish can always be handled later through prompt refinement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This leads directly into our next step: creating a complete, detailed experience design that clearly maps out each step and goal \u2014 what Athena and Poseidon will do, what the AI Director will say, and what the audience should feel at each moment. This process will also help us determine what assets and systems we need in advance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We also revisited our final deliverables plan, which focuses on documenting our work for future ETC teams. The goal is to make our system and design process as reusable and transferable as possible for anyone continuing this exploration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And, to wrap up the week, here is a little bit of \u201cfun jailbreaking\u201d, from Tom Corbett\u2014 just experimenting with AI behavior for curiosity\u2019s sake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-video\"><video controls src=\"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_0979.mov\"><\/video><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wrapping up what us did after half, it&#8217;s playtest Day! Check the demo here. We have recevied over 30 playtesters feedback, from middle school students to elder people. This creates diversity in our playtest feedback. Some playtest takeaways we want to share here: Experience Rating What Makes Players Laugh \/ Engage What Confuses Players Art [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-224","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\/224","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=224"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224\/revisions\/240"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/echotrio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}