This week, we shifted gears to focus on preparing content specifically for our upcoming playtest. While texturing was paused, we continued developing core assets for the main gameplay.
A big focus was integrating dialogue, letters, and other narrative elements. However, we realized the amount of text might overwhelm players, so we’ve divided the content into different formats: letters for personal reflections, dialogue for character interactions, and flyers/newspapers for background information. This should help balance storytelling with gameplay and allow players to engage with the content at their own pace.
As we prepare for playtest day this Saturday, we’re excited to see how these changes impact player engagement and refine the overall experience. Stay tuned for more updates!
Here you can see the Narrative Mapped out:
Bernie’s relationship with Sammy/Samuel explores how Sammy’s Corner got closed down and then replaced by a Sunpennies.
Sammy’s Corner logo –
Sunpennies Logo and Flier –
Sammy’s Corner Spices
Bernie’s Relationship with Peggy explores the ups and downs of the Community Garden and how it got shut down by the government and a “Total Foods” opened up in it’s place.
Newspaper Day 2: Talking about community gardens and victory gardens featuring Peggy’s initiative with the Lawrencefield Community Garden.
Day 3 Newspaper talks about how the Total Foods was a sign of gentrification.
Total foods flier –
Letters between Peggy and Bernie talking about the Community Garden and Gloves –
Bernie’s relationship with Sukhvinder explores the general change in the neighborhood.
The steel bowl and radio talks about Sukhvinder’s friendship with both Bernie and Sammy.
Another big reveal is Bernie’s Eviction:
We created some 2D readable and UI assets for design purposes:
For objective setting and level design we created letters:
We created some notes left on boxes to guide the player to find certain objects:
UI to help Player to understand indicate interactions
