Summary:
This was the first week (Feb.21-27) of pre-alpha, where our minimum viable product (MVP) has been getting into shape and completed our first weekly playtest with naive guests. Please see below for our latest video demo.
What we have done:
Preparation for Half Presentation
In order to prepare for our halves presentation next Monday, many hours were spent on the presentation slides and practice (screenshot attached), including our instructor Meeting on Feb.25. More details will be covered in next week’s blog.
Playtest within ETC (Feb.25)
With the progress achieved in programming and art assets, we were able to start our weekly playtest within ETC. An announcement was made in ETC’s Slack, Discord, and WeChat to recruit play testers and luckily we had four naive guests (pictures attached).
During 2 sessions, we introduced the concept of cultural humility. Then they played through what we had on our digital version, which was to build your own cultural wheels. The rest of gameplay (team puzzle solving) was done through paper prototypes because it was not implemented at the time. We took notes on players’ reactions, questions, and comments and received constructive feedback. For example, the scale could be a slider from 0-10 for weighing categories, instead of a drop down list of 1-10. Currently the gameplay required rotating the phone from portrait to landscape midway through, which was not intuitive. All of the notes will be discussed next week amongst our designers to iterate the gameplay.
Project Management
Task track sheet for programming, design/UI/UX, and art has been updated accordingly and on track for pre-alpha phase (screenshot attached). We are in a good place to complete the interim goals for MVP, if not faster than expected.
Programming
A list of MVP features has been implemented and reflected in the track sheet above, including players logging in, building cultural wheels, and part of team puzzle solving (video attached).
Art
Art assets, including color palette, designs of cultural wheels, and category icons have been in production and review. Please refer to Week 7 Half Presentations.
What we plan to do
Next Monday will be our half presentation, followed by a 4-day week and 10-day spring break. Game design details will be iterated based on weekly playtests. Tasks including the rest of team puzzle solving and art will continue to be developed.
