This was the week of halves presentations. We created a slide deck that showed how our project had evolved since quarters, which was the last time many of the faculty had seen it. We explained how we decided to narrow our project’s focus to crafting an emotional arc based on feedback we had received at halves. We then showed how our development had gone since then, first by explaining our early tests, and then by playing a video from our most recent playtest. We then broke down the feedback we’d collected into what was working, what wasn’t working, what was unexpected, and our next steps based on that feedback. We walked through some of our concept art and our 3D art pipeline, explaining how the visual effects were created for the shadow figures. We concluded by explaining how our timeline had shifted based on our changes since quarters, and by reiterating the plan for the full experience we would be delivering by finals.
The faculty had some concerns. First, it was pointed out that the 2D and 3D art styles we showed in our presentation currently don’t match. Our 3D had been pushed in a much more realistic direction based on our quarters feedback, but many faculty were of the mind that some of our concept art, done in a much sketchier and impressionistic style, was more compelling for a dreamscape. There was also confusion over the overall goal and structure of our experience. The biggest concern though was one of scope. After all, we promised we would have 5-7 rooms in our final experience, and here we had only 1 to show, and it did not look finished. They were concerned that we were seriously behind where we should be in order to deliver a complete experience by finals.
We took these concerns seriously, and continued to seek out follow up critique after our presentation. We learned that some faculty disagreed with our decision to focus solely on fear, saying it took away the interesting ambiguity of our lucid dream setting. Other faculty thought we were generally playing it too safe, and should try to push further and be more experimental. If our playtesters had reported that the mechanics were distracting them from observing the environment, then did our experience need mechanics at all? We were encouraged to think bigger, and to not be constrained by our original design.
We met as a team to discuss how to incorporate all this feedback moving forward. First we went over our tech pipeline, laying out what our next programming and level design tasks should be, and seriously discussing if we were as behind as the faculty thought. Although we concluded that we need to pick up the pace somewhat, we all still felt confident that our original plan was realistic and we were on track to meet it. We feel this way because we know how much “behind the scenes” programming work we had already finished in the prior weeks. While this work was not visible or easy to display in a presentation, it is fundamental to every room in our experience. With that work already completed, we will be able to produce the rest of the game at a reasonable pace.
Next we went over the art critiques. We had moved to a more realistic art style since quarters based on our research that dreams are constructed out of things we see in real life, but this obviously wasn’t landing as intended with our audience. We went back to some of our original references, and also added in new ones, including the movie Waking Life and the paintings of Edvard Munch. We decided to try keeping our environments realistically proportioned, but textured in a more shifting, painterly style based on these references. We also discussed ways in which the transitions between rooms could be powerful moments of surreal dream logic, with the entire world shifting around the player. Finally, we created an asset list to make sure that the plans we had discussed still weren’t our of scope. With everyone agreeing that our goals felt achievable, we set our sights on having at least 3 rooms of our experience testable by Playtest Day, the Saturday after Fall Break.