Week 6: Playtesting and more

strimbol

This week, Mic Check took time to playtest our current prototype with our Carnegie Mellon peers and our Subject Matter Experts. This feedback will guide us in our next interactions of development and help structure our Halves presentation.

Tuesday Night Playtest:

Tuesday Night Playtest is a weekly event held on Carnegie Mellon’s main campus. Different game development groups can sign up to test their game. Our team wanted to understand what players thought of our current AI opponent and gain feedback on the structure of the rap battle.

General Feedback:

  • Need more instruction or information at the beginning of the experience
  • The player goal is a little unclear but who they are talking to is clear
  • Everyone thought the player conversation and rap battle were engaging
  • Fly Gull asking questions makes her the conversationalist and discourages the player from seeking information from her
  • The questions are intimidating
  • The art style didn’t take them out of the gameplay and they thought it was engaging/ matched the environment
  • They liked the freedom of the fill-in-the-blanks
  • They thought the AI answers were too long
  • Players want more leading fill-in-blanks
  • Want the subway to feel “cooler” with cooler colors and less friendly

General Observations:

  • 2/4 players found Fly Gull’s weakness but only 1 knew to diss about it
  • One player found a weakness without talking to Fly Gull
  • Fly Gull is too likeable and friendly
  • Everyone was nice to the AI, no one cursed or was mean or wrote nonsense
  • One player became cautious of the information they were giving Fly Gull because they thought they would use it against them in the rap
  • Everyone took a really long time 5-10 minutes talking and 10+ to complete the rap battle
  • Most people asked about music
  • Players didn’t understand how the scoring worked but took educated guesses. Some thought they were scored based on:
    • Staying true to the prompt they gave
    • If they rhymed
    • If they talked about a weakness

Fixes:

  • Make text fill-in-blank text boxes closer to the bar or more apparent
  • Change Flyona to Fly Gull
  • Make Fly Gull not ask questions, only respond
  • Make Fly Gulls answers 1-3 sentences only
  • If the player doesn’t submit anything in the fill-in-blanks then they can’t submit
  • Make Fly Gull a little meaner or more competitive

Insight from Subject Matter Experts:

In addition to our Tuesday Night Playtest, we also met with Charlie our AI SME, and SoulMan IT one of our rap SMEs. They each gave us some feedback on the game design.

SoulMan IT’s Feedback:

  • Thought Fly Gull’s personality was spicey, sassy, trying to be fly
  • Didn’t know who the sunbeams were
  • Used a lot of exact rhymes
  • Our game reminds him of madlib
  • Thinks there should either be a long timer or no timer
  • Could add more swing to the music
  • Fly Gull should talk more suave
  • The experience is fun and he likes what we are doing
  • When he inputted a lot of topics the AI didn’t add much
  • Wants to freestyle/ rewrite sentences
  • Rap book is kinda like our notes app
  • We could use simile and metaphor structures to help make better raps

Charlie Feedback:

  • We need a (re)generate bar button
  • Give playtesters rumors and see if they can find weaknesses
  • Drag and drop rap book into the topics section
  • Need a little more movement in the setting
  • Don’t generate the first line of Fly Gull’s speech

Preparing for Halves:

Halves presentation is where all the team in our department conduct a 15-minute presentation about their progress so far. This presentation is meant to showcase work and how each team has prepared to have a successful rest of the semester. Here is the structure of our presentation:

  • Intro rap
  • Meet the Team
  • Project Instructors and SMEs
  • Project Purpose
  • Live Demo
  • Project Goal
  • Rap Culture
  • Rap Music
  • Becoming Rhyme Rider
  • Art Style
  • Game Loop
  • Using Gen AI
  • Fly Gull
  • Making an AI Opponent
  • Writing Assistance
  • Audience and Scoring
  • Playtest
  • Feedback
  • Next Steps
  • Thanks

Next Steps:

In the coming week, finish up some fixes on our prototype, go back to Tuesday Night Playtest, do our Halves presentation, and plan out the rest of the semester.

Hi, I’m strimbol

Related Posts