Playtest Day Preparation
This week was all about playtesting. We kicked off the week with a playtesting workshop to get the team focused on what central question we want our playtests to answer. Faris and Zibo spent a majority of their time creating separate builds so we could perform A/B tests using real biofeedback from the Hexoskin and prerecorded biofeedback with an Apple Watch. Lauren worked on optimizing some of the art for our Quest build to keep the frames per second at a good rate. Constanza and Gillian worked on ironing out the logistics of Playtest Day by creating:
- a pre-survey, a post-survey, and interview questions
- a room flow plan
- a time usage plan
- a shift schedule
Testing with Peers, Faculty Consultants, and Simcoach Guests
To test out our Playtest Day plan and gather more data, we tested on two of our peers at the ETC and with our two faculty consultants. We also had the opportunity to test our meditation with some designers and artists visiting the ETC from Simcoach Games. This helped minimize any kinks with builds and tech. These playtests also gave us a first look of the data we were collecting and provided us time to parse through the data to find what was most important. In general, we found that looking at average respiration rate over each section and what objects meditators were looking at were two of the most important things for us to monitor. During these playtests we also discovered that people wearing skirts had some issue and discomfort sitting on the floor. One of these playtests also provided our team with a good data set to use as our “fake” biofeedback data for when testing the environment without the Hexoskin.
Testing with Equa Health
This week also marked our first test with Dr. David Creswell from Equa Health. He provided some good feedback to help us iterate and polish our project. Dr. Creswell was especially interested in making the biofeedback more obvious to the meditator, potentially with global changes in the environment. You can see his full playtest session below.
Changes
Faris began working on the breathing data graph we want presented at the end of the meditation session. The first iteration of the graph is pretty bare bones as Faris and Constanza begin to iterate on the graph for clarity and aesthetics.
Lauren began developing more biofeedback indicators to integrate into the environment. The first one from this week included saturation changes in major objects. This was inspired by Dr. Creswell feedback regarding the potential for more global environmental changes.