This was the week we sat down with our clients Jeff and Harry to walk them through everything: the Halves presentation, a live demo of the current build, playtest results, and our plans for the second half of the semester.
They were thrilled. Not politely-nodding thrilled. Genuinely, visibly excited. Jeff said the installation would “light up the whole town.” For a project targeting a memorial library in Northumberland, Pennsylvania, that kind of enthusiasm from the people who know the community best is the ultimate validation.
We shared our plan for Level 2 & 3, and this is where the conversation got really interesting. It takes Priestley’s story into darker territory: the Birmingham Riots of 1791, where a mob burned his home and destroyed his laboratory. His flight from England to America. Designing a new home in Northumberland with his wife Mary. And then losing her.
The clients didn’t flinch. They confirmed that the Riots are one of the great turning points in Priestley’s life, exactly the kind of dramatic, emotionally charged moment that could transform how teenagers see him. And they added an important detail we hadn’t fully considered: even after Mary’s death, Priestley’s family stayed with him. He wasn’t completely alone. That nuance matters for the emotional design. This isn’t a story about a man abandoned by everyone. It’s about a man who lost the person he relied on most, while the people around him tried to hold things together.
On the technical side, we dove into critical LLM chatbot decisions based on instructor feedback. For important biographical facts like Mary’s name, his children, his friendship with Franklin, and his Unitarian beliefs, should we hardcode them or rely on fine-tuning? Context window limitations make this a real engineering question, not just a design preference. We also discussed adding disclaimers for the chatbot, building in protections against players trying to break character, and an intriguing new idea: having Priestley ask questions back to the player. Instead of a one-directional interview, what if the ghost is curious about you too?
The clients offered to help with everything we asked: reviewing scripts, rating AI-generated answers for historical accuracy, providing background materials for Level 2 & 3. More details on installation logistics will be confirmed next week.
Walking out of that meeting, the team felt something shift. The project isn’t just ours anymore. The clients are co-invested, co-dreaming, and genuinely counting on us to deliver something that matters to their community.