Summary

This week was all about ETC Playtest Day prep. We wanted to make sure that we could get as much feedback as possible for our game, so our focus was on finishing one complete level. This allowed us to cut down our scope and focus the time on fixing bugs and getting the foundation in a great place so that future levels can be easily added. We also compiled a playtest day script so that we were prepared for the playtesters and outlined what we hoped to learn from this experience. Heather, our advisor shared some great resources on playtest questions that helped us to get crucial feedback and helped us to understand what issues need to be addressed.

Art

This week is really productive. We finished the UI art and the first level scene. The color palette comes from our team logo and the overall color looks very cohesive now. We used bright pink, mint blue, yellow and light purple as our main color palette to create a colorful and cheerful party game vibe. Hopefully the new UI can help the players to be more engaging in the gaming experience. 

Design feedback

This week we got back from Professor Geoff Kaufman regarding the suggestions and advice about the level 2 and level 3 questions. We also had a meeting in the team talking about how we want to adjust those questions based on his feedback. As he reviewed the questions, he provided some suggestions about whether the question would be too whimsical and straightforward. Also, some questions would be difficult for the players to answer or figure out. Moreover, we had a question asking the players’ current mood. Professor Kaufman suggests that their moods would be skewed based on how they are playing the game right now. So, we changed the question sentence by asking what is your mood at the beginning of the day. It makes more sense. 

Tech

We made significant progress before the playtest day. We successfully implemented the UI framework and seamlessly deployed it on iPhone devices. Additionally, we accomplished the challenging task of enabling network functionality between different iOS devices. Learning how to implement network-related features and facilitate communication between servers and clients required a considerable amount of time. Moreover, coordinating our coding styles, especially with four programmers collaborating on the same project, presented its own challenges. However, the positive outcome is that we all gained valuable insights and experience from the process. As a result, the discussion phase now functions smoothly without any bugs.

Playtest Day Prep

In order for us to make sure that we are prepared for Playtest Day, we had our advisors review our work. We also asked fellow students not familiar with our work if they would read through our tutorial to determine if they understood what they were supposed to do in each round. 

ETC Playtest Day

Playtest Day was a huge success! The feedback we received from the playtesters were greater than we expected and it left us feeling very confident about our research and direction. The majority of the feedback we received we had anticipated and already had solutions in place to address them so that was good, but there were others that we took from the experience that we can use to help elevate the game.

Common feedback

Positive

• Enjoyed seeing what people guessed
• Liked learning about each other
• Thought the herding section was a fun surprise
• Thought that having it on mobile would make it easier for people to use

Negative

• Were unsure what they selected
• Thought the tutorial was the game
• Didn’t know which portal belonged to which player
• Some objects were confusing
• Issues with the herding controller (older participants)

How we are addressing these issues

• Implement our new UI system
  • Can see what is selected
  • Understand when they are in the tutorial or game phase
• New tutorial with gifs showing how to herd
• Update portals to correspond with the player (color and name)

Next Steps

Our next steps will be to evaluate the playtest day feedback we received and narrow down what we should address and set priorities. This will be especially important since we have only a half of a week next week due to CMU carnival and then softs is the Monday after.