After the playtest on Saturday, we gained valuable insights into how players are engaging with Torn Apart. Here’s a quick rundown of the feedback and next steps:
Positive Feedback:
- Target Age Group: Our desired demographic (college students) responded well to the content and understood the narrative beats.
- Narrative Engagement: Players connected with the emotional themes and storyline.
Key Concern:
- Knowledge Gap: The game resonated more with players who had prior knowledge of gentrification. Some players struggled to engage, getting distracted or missing key points.
Areas for Improvement:
- Gameplay Controls: Some input controls need to be simplified for better ease of use.
- Bug Fixes: Players experienced issues with falling through the environment, which needs to be addressed.
- Environment Aesthetics: The apartment needs more texturing to feel lived-in and authentic.
- Interaction Design: Certain design interactions need to be made more intuitive to improve the user experience.
Moving Forward:
- We’ll refine the narrative to make it more accessible for players unfamiliar with gentrification while maintaining its depth for those who are informed.
- We’ll also address the gameplay, bug fixes, and environmental improvements to enhance the overall experience.
Our current plan is to keep moving forward with Production with the new plan. We intend to make our build for Softs our “Almost” final build. With that in mind we made deliverables that we present to Mike and Heather (Our Instructors) and playtest every chance we get.
We also decided this week to develop the outside of the apartment, to show the changing neighborhoods. One way we decided to do that is billboards:
“Before” billboard:
“After” Billboard:
Some of the things we developed this week:
