Week 3: Quarters & Prototypes

Can you believe we are already 25% of the way through this semester? Neither can I! This week Mic Check will be presenting our Quarters presentation and based on that feedback, start structuring the needs for our prototype.

We are also meeting with another Subject Matter Expert about simulating a rap battle and playtesting with teens. At the end of the week, we have some fun group activities planned; team bonding, and attending a rap battle. The goal is to learn more about each other and rap!

Quarters Presentation:

For Quarters, we prepared a poster presentation, a paper prototype, and 3 mini digital prototypes. Quarters is meant to be eight 15 minute presentations in a row with all of our faculty members. With our material list being so long, Q&A ran a little shorter than we would have hoped, but nonetheless, we got some really useful feedback.

• The AI Opponent should respond/adapt to what the player is inputting
• The game loop right now seems out of scope
• We should take out the beat matching and focus on writing the rap
• While developing the writing the rap part, think about what will help the player
• To add musicality, have the players record themselves doing the rap and upload to a repository
• When the AI bot reads out the rap, is there a way to tell it to add emphasis to certain words?
• Layout the MVP more
• Clarify the motivation of the player more/why they want to win
• Look at the game design through a poetic perspective
• The game could be satisfying enough if it’s just writing
• Leverage the fact that people like to be better than bots
• Possibly narrow down the age- to narrow down the design
• Stick to a style and learn a lot about those styles when making the AI opponent

First Prototype

With this feedback, we laid out a timeline and the requirements for our first prototype. Our goal is to have a first basic demo of the battle sequence of the game by the end of week 5 and begin testing week 6. We decided to take out the beat-matching aspect of the game because it wasn’t solving the musicality question or serving the project goal.

Team Bonding:

This we we had our team bonding at Kiin Lao and Thai Eatery. The team got to share stories and learn more about each other. Beyond building an awesome game, we also want to build trust and respect among our peers. Everyone is extremely talented and a future leader in our field.

Attending a Rap Battle:

We also had the unique opportunity to attend a rap battle in Pittsburgh. We went to a “Street Talk” event that hosted battles with multiple artists from across the country. Everyone was super welcoming and we learned a lot about the structure and experience of a real rap battle. Here are our key take aways:

• The raps were done accapella with no background music to our surprise. Probably because of how loud the audience can get.
• Most battles were 3 rounds, but others were 1 round with 3 times the bars.
• Although the bars often reference bars/threaten the opponent, they seemed more “respectful” than lower blows about someone’s appearance.
• When a clever bar was said, the audience would cheer and the rapper would wait until they were done then repeat the bar. The audience would then say the bar with the rapper.
• There was no declared winner. All the battles were up to interpretation.

Meeting with our SME, SoulMan IT:

We got in contact with SoulMan IT last week with the help of a fellow classmate. SoulMan IT is a producer, rapper, artist, and teacher at a hip-hop orchestra. He talked to us about the history of rap and rap culture as well as gave us some insider knowledge about how to onboard highschoolers a game like ours.

Next Steps:

Week 4 is a dive into development, we will be building out the player character, AI opponent, and AI Audience profiles. At the same time, we will be constructing the backend to integrate the characters into the game and 3D modeling the scene. Our sound designer will start making the beats and collecting sound effects as well.