Overview
The team is back after a week off for fall break at CMU. This week was all about assessing the feedback from our halves presentation and making plans for the second half of the semester. We discussed some of these concerns with our faculty advisors as well as Lulu LaMer, a veteran game producer. These meetings resulted in scoping decisions and pinpointing a few areas of risk that we hope to focus in on for our playtest this weekend for playtest day here at the ETC. Aside from larger discussions about the project, environment art continues to progress with textures being implemented into the scene. On the character art front, the models for the characters are near completion with the goal of capturing footage next week to begin the animations. This week we also integrated Fmod into the project to get our sound workflow up and running. At the end of the week, we discussed our script with Jessica Hammer and did some prep for playtest day on Saturday.
Halves Feedback and Scoping Adjustments
We received some feedback from faculty after our Halves presentation. Both on how we presented and on the game itself.
For the most part, they thought our presentation went well. They felt that we used the IGDA Environmental Game Design Playbook was a good backdrop to help display our design goals for the presentation. The walkthrough of the story structure also helped illustrate the experience. They did wish there was some confusion on the gameplay mechanics and they wished they could see more of the gameplay itself.
The feedback on the project itself was mostly voicing concern over the scope and a better hierarchy of what was important to the game. On the scoping side, they were wondering if we are capable of delivering on what was promised in the experience. They wanted us to make some tough decisions on what was important to the project. We also got some good notes on the visuals of the game and some tips to keep animations simple.
To address these concerns we made a few adjustments to the game in the form of cuts and are planning on sending out a playable build of the game to faculty at the beginning of week 9. The cuts we made were removing the 2nd phase of our puzzle mechanic where the player moves the solar panels after placing the planters. The reason for removing this was to lower the time to play the game and allow more time to focus on the UX of the base planter-placing puzzles. Another choice we made was to cut Eddie, the mechanic, as an in-world 3D NPC. This makes for less modeling work for Yukti and gives her more time to focus on the quality of the other characters in the game. Story adjustments have already been made to address this.
Art
This week, final textures for environmental assets have begun to get integrated into the game. Take a look at some of the images below. So far we are on track to have all Essential and High Priority assets textured by the middle of week 10.
Continued work is also being done on the specific foliage in the environment. Danny is using Houdini to aid in this process. Be on the lookout for some screenshots in the coming weeks.
Sound
This week we integrated Fmod into our Unity project and began to add sounds to the environment. This includes some music, ambient sounds for the playable sections of the game, and sound effects like foliage rustling. The sound effects use 3D and spacial audio that reacts to the player’s location in relation to the objects on the rooftop. By next week we hope to have sound effects for the puzzle and some more music added to the game. This video might give a good idea of what the basic sounds of the game will be like.
Meetings
This week we met with our faculty consultants to discuss this feedback. The team had already discussed where we might make cuts and talked more about it with Heather and Jonathan. On Wednesday morning we settled on the scoping decisions mentioned above.
On Wednesday we had the privilege of talking to game producer Lulu LaMer about our project. We sent our presentation, blog, and an early build so she could get an idea of what we were making. The biggest takeaway from this meeting was that our biggest risks at this point were the scope (which we hope will be helped by our decisions) and UX. To address the UX concern, we are going to utilize ETC playtest day to test the UX of each section of the game. Due to the amount of time we have on playtest day, we plan to test chapters 2, 4, and 6 in isolation to make sure players are able to play the game without any intervention. This will hopefully give us lots of data to drive future UX iteration.
Our meeting with Jessica Hammer this week mostly focused on the story of the game and the dialogue. She liked what we had but had some notes on the amount of dialogue at the beginning of the game as well as the character Asha’s profession as a journalist. She wondered if that was the best choice based on the demographic of our game. Overall, she likes what we had shown her. Next week we hope to send her the build to get some feedback on that in terms of UX.
Media and Elevator Pitch
This week we also created a Youtube page with some videos on it to help introduce people to our project. This includes the short elevator pitch of our experience as well as a playthrough of the camera quest at the end of the game showing off all of the different technologies on the rooftop. Below is the elevator pitch.
Looking Into Next Week
- ETC Playtest Day and Playtest Night at Hunt Library
- Capture Animation Reference footage
- Continued texturing of environments
- Creating UI asset list and beginning UI elements
- Expanding interactivity of the camera mechanics
- Continued sound work