Week 8 – GDC – Questweavers

Overview

Week 8 happened during the GDC week, so the team was mostly away. Due to this situation, our focus was on preparing and sending out the pilot playtest build based on the first graybox prototype, while also collecting as much outside feedback as we could. Even though it was a lighter production week in some areas, it became an important testing week as we were able to run two pilot playtests and get useful feedback on the current experience.

Weekly Focus

Prepare and send out the pilot playtest build
Conduct pilot playtests and collect feedback
Identify the biggest experience problems to tackle next

Progress Update

Tech

Focused on bug fixing and improvements while preparing a build for pilot playtest
Added pause-menu buttons
Improved shrine and incense visual states
Fixed the mist meter issues and initialized the meter more cleanly
Fixed camera reset on respawn
Fixed additive scene-loading issues with mist zones
Continued dealing with visual issues around transparency and multiple mist zones, which still looked harder to solve than expected

Art

Continued working on enemy design
Continued working on environmental design

Sound

Improved looping music behavior after death

Design & Production

Prepared pilot playtest supporting materials
Sent out the pilot playtest invitation to the faculty
Conducted an in-person playtest with guest players with the help of a friend from another team
Collected feedback showing that the immediate goal and intended path were often unclear
Noted that players generally understood enemy avoidance more than the actual target or progression
Received feedback that the mist was readable in concept, but slowing the player automatically made the experience feel less controllable
Identified that the overall experience still felt too easy and not stealthy enough in its current state

Notes

This week was about using the break to test the current build and learn from it. The two pilot playtests were valuable as they showed us that our current build still had major issues with goal clarity and pacing, and the overall stealth experience was still quite weak. In particular, the feedback made it clear that the project was not yet delivering the tension or gameplay depth we wanted, which gave us a clearer direction for what needed to be improved next.