Design Sprint: 4

Overview

• During last week’s client meeting, we received a lot of feedback for both the theming and core gameplay mechanics of our game
• Our main goals for this week:
  • Implement a working prototype with last week’s feedback in time for Tuesday’s external playtest
  • Finalize theming of the world – settling on narrative, art direction 
  • Begin sound design of the world

Version 2.1.1 Test Link: https://moontwist11.itch.io/hai-v211 

Password: opachi

Gameplay Updates

After receiving feedback for previous week’s demo, we’ve refined the gameplay and interactions between the two players in our core gameplay loop. As a refresher, we are currently using the following definitions for our game:

World – Candy Kingdom, the entire playable world of our game

Neighborhood – distinct areas within the world that the players can explore. Each neighborhood will have a distinct theme but fit within the overall world

House/Patch – areas/objects within a neighborhood that the Explorer will interact with to forage

Candy/Opachi – creatures within the world that need to be categorized

Goal: Explorer and Selecter must find and categorize as many Sick Opachis as possible within the given time limit

Below is an image demonstrating the main gameplay loop for the two players and their interactions with each other.

We made a number of changes from last week based on the client’s feedback and our own playtesting. Some of the larger changes included:

• To fit with their research goals, Selecter should receive stimuli one at a time and make a quick decision rather than selecting from a batch
• There should be stronger moments of trust between the two players; our method of implementing this is through a conjoined “leave neighborhood” decision
• Swapping from a turn to a time limit – our previous concerns with AI speed are controllable from their end and should not end up being a problem

Exploration Phase

Selection Phase

Playtesting

We went to Hunt Library to playtest naive guests, and got 3.5 pairs of players (yes, that’s 7 testers, including Peter and Alexandria, fellows from our clients’ lab) to test our demo v2.1.1.

Iteration Direction

Theming Updates

This week, we finalized the map planning of the world and the theming of the various neighborhoods within our world.

3D References & Moodboard

Neighborhood Design

Based on the color palette, characteristic keywords, and the mood pictures, we generated some AI designed 3d scene reference for our environment…

Next Week, Maybe… 

• Begin the integration of all components of our game (art, sound and gameplay)
• Iterate upon our gameplay and UX based on playtesting + client feedback from this week