Week 13: Finding our Flow

strimbolApr 26, 2025

This week, Mic Check will begin preparing for our final presentation and making the final push in development before we focus on wrapping up the semester. We’ve had an amazing semester and would love to continue developing afterwards, but first, let’s end this semester with a bang!

Final Presentation:

The final presentation is an opportunity to celebrate your project and tell the faculty why it was successful and what you learned from development. For our presentation, we want to focus on balancing our game design, AI components, and world-building to create a cohesive project.

Writing Techniques:

One the final add-ons to the game are writing techniques. Some of the feedback we received over the past couple of weeks, was that fill-in-the-blanks mechanics is too limiting. There feels like there is a “right” and “wrong” answer. On the flip side, we also got feedback that the fill-in-the-blanks was more comfortable for players with little rap experiences. Since we want to inspired creative freedom and let players feel clever when writing their raps, we decided to add more writing modes in order to let the player decide how much help they want when constructing their raps.

Rhyme Sets and Editing:

We kept the fill in the last word structure and called that mode Rhyme Sets. You essentially create a set of rhyming words to end each sentence. To enhance this so that their isn’t a “right” or “wrong” answer, we added an edit option. This way, if the first word you come up with doesn’t perfectly fit the sentence, you can edit the sentence to make it fit better.

Lead-ins:

Lead-ins is a beginner rap practice exercise where the first half of a bar is set up for you. “When I step in the zone,…” This sets the context of the bar while giving the player the power to conclude the sentence.

Bar-for-Bar:

In this writing mode, the first and third sentences are generated for you and you have to write the rhyming bar. We noticed a lot of the players were thinking about the 4 bar rap in couplets and only using ABAB rhyme schemes. This mode plays into those assumptions and gives the player the freedom to write a whole bar.

We thought maybe this new structure could lead to different difficulty modes, but to our suprise, different player thought different modes were the easier than others. It all goes back to player preference, and I am happy that we were able to give the players the option to choose.

XO Soul and Performing:

Along with the final touches to the gameplay, we are also finished the model for XO Soul and are hoping to have him as a cameo after the battle with Fly Gull. In addition, we have created a performance stage where the player can see a 3D represenation of their character in the rap battle. We are still unsure if these changes can be put into the game but we are hopeful for Rhyme Riders future!