{"id":774,"date":"2026-04-18T17:04:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T17:04:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/historacle\/?p=774"},"modified":"2026-05-01T17:04:52","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T17:04:52","slug":"week-13-soft-opens-and-showcase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/historacle\/week-13-soft-opens-and-showcase\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 13 \u2013 Soft Opens and Showcase"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Week 13 marked the final stretch of development, beginning with Soft Opens on Monday<\/strong> and concluding with the Alumni Project Showcase<\/strong>. Across both events, the team focused on stabilization, clarity, and preparing the experience for external audiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soft Opens Feedback<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

During Soft Opens, the project received strong engagement from faculty<\/strong>, particularly around the complexity of the system design and the layered decision-making mechanics. While players were able to engage with the core loop, feedback continued to emphasize the importance of reducing cognitive load and simplifying card interactions<\/strong>, especially in relation to readability and system clarity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This reaffirmed ongoing priorities around:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • Reducing overall card count and complexity<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Improving UI clarity and pop-up readability<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Ensuring core systems remain understandable in a short play experience<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    System Refinement and Final Adjustments<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    Throughout the week, the team focused on final adjustments to stabilize the build:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \n
    • Card system balancing<\/strong> continued, with adjustments made to reduce the number of active cards in circulation<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Mingrui updated question and narrative configurations<\/strong> directly within the project to support clarity and pacing<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Haru focused on improving the UI pop-up system<\/strong> and fixing remaining interaction bugs, particularly around card selection and display behavior<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Junru supported remote testing and implementation support<\/strong>, working on scripting for event-driven systems such as day transitions and animation triggers<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

      A key technical focus was implementing a more structured event system<\/strong>, allowing changes in game state (such as day progression) to reliably trigger animations and UI updates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Alumni Project Showcase<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

      The week concluded with the Alumni Project Showcase<\/strong>, where the team presented the project to visiting alumni. This provided an opportunity to demonstrate the current state of the game and gather final-stage feedback from external viewers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Overall, feedback was constructive and helped reinforce both the strengths of the project\u2014particularly its ambitious systems and narrative framing<\/strong>\u2014as well as remaining areas for refinement around clarity and onboarding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \n\n\n\n

      Week 13 served as a transition point from development into presentation, focusing on stabilization, simplification, and communication of the core experience<\/strong> as the project moved into its final showcase phase.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Week 13 marked the final stretch of development, beginning with Soft Opens on Monday and concluding with the Alumni Project Showcase. Across both events, the team focused on stabilization,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/historacle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/historacle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/historacle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/historacle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/historacle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=774"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/historacle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":775,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/historacle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774\/revisions\/775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/historacle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/historacle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/historacle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}