{"id":267,"date":"2025-04-09T19:17:07","date_gmt":"2025-04-09T19:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/hello-alice\/?p=267"},"modified":"2025-04-09T19:18:42","modified_gmt":"2025-04-09T19:18:42","slug":"week-11-polish-prepare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/hello-alice\/week-11-polish-prepare\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 11 – Polish & Prepare"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As Softs approach, this week was all about iteration, polish, and pushing boundaries<\/strong>. With each team member zeroing in on their piece of the puzzle, we’re getting closer to delivering a cohesive and magical experience for our players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Building the Classroom Guide<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n

Eva focused on crafting a Classroom Guide<\/strong> to help educators better understand how to use the tool. This is a critical step toward making our game more than fun\u2014it makes it teachable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Fixing Bugs and more<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Jinyi dove deep into bug fixing<\/strong> and implemented the ability to resize interactable objects<\/strong> so they fit better in each scene. They also attempted to add interactable characters<\/strong> for testing, although that part is still a work in progress. The JSON data controller<\/strong> was also updated to improve script reloading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Yifan added magical hover\/select visual effects<\/strong> to boost the game\u2019s feedback and feel. Alongside this visual upgrade, they also worked on bug fixing\u2014while jokingly noting they \u201cadded more bugs\u201d too. That\u2019s the dev life!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Spell Lab UI Overhaul<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Wendy pushed forward major updates to the Spell Lab UI<\/strong>, adding a new feature for players to review and edit their spell history<\/strong>. After testing with classmates, she iterated through three versions<\/strong> using Figma. This design loop is helping us move closer to a clear and intuitive interface.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

VFX & AI Help Experiments<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Zhanqi explored ChatGPT integration<\/strong> as a helper model (though not yet successful) and continued experimenting with new VFX and lighting<\/strong>, adding atmospheric richness to the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jia finalized which 3D assets<\/strong> to include in the game and explored AI tools for model generation<\/strong> to streamline future development and scale up visual diversity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Next Up: Softs<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We’re heading into Soft Opening<\/strong> on next week, where we\u2019ll showcase our progress, gather feedback, and share what we\u2019ve learned. Our focus is on final polishing before Softs. We’ll refine the walkthrough to clearly highlight key features, fix lingering bugs related, and continue enhancing character interactions to support storytelling. The updated review\/edit history UI will be integrated more meaningfully into the player experience, and we\u2019ll test the classroom guide= to ensure it\u2019s practical for real-world use. Lastly, we’ll add visual touches to bring everything together and ensure a smooth, engaging playthrough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Softs approach, this week was all about iteration, polish, and pushing boundaries. With each team member zeroing in on their piece of the puzzle, we’re getting closer to delivering a cohesive and magical experience for our players. Building the Classroom Guide Eva focused on crafting a Classroom Guide to help educators better understand how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dev-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/hello-alice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/hello-alice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/hello-alice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/hello-alice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/hello-alice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/hello-alice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":295,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/hello-alice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267\/revisions\/295"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/hello-alice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/hello-alice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/hello-alice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/hello-alice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}