{"id":612,"date":"2025-11-10T02:35:46","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T02:35:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/renushu\/?p=612"},"modified":"2025-11-19T02:36:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T02:36:09","slug":"dev-blog-week-10-2025-11-3-%ef%bc%8d-2025-11-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/renushu\/dev-blog-week-10-2025-11-3-%ef%bc%8d-2025-11-7\/","title":{"rendered":"Dev Blog: Week 10 (2025\/11\/3 \uff0d 2025\/11\/7)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>After our November 1 Playtest Day, Week 10 focused on turning real user feedback into concrete design and technical changes. It also became the week where we rethought our third mini-game and made an important decision about how closely in-game actions should map to real-world physical therapy exercises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Key Takeaways From Playtest Day<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Players reacted positively to the core idea\u2014many said they felt \u201ctricked into exercising\u201d\u2014and therapists appreciated the overall structure of the PT interface. At the same time, several recurring issues emerged:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Tracking and connectivity instability, especially on the right shoe<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Unclear pacing and round structure in the Reactive Stepping game<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A few SFX that felt too harsh<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Color-only cues that were easy to miss<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In the Heel Raise game, the \u201cnew item\u201d in the scene was sometimes too subtle<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>These findings set the priorities for this week\u2019s iteration work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Updates to Existing Prototypes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Reactive Stepping<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>To make rounds easier to understand and more stable:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Added a Start button, countdown, and time-left display<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Rebalanced animal spawns<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Softened SFX and added a mute option<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Tightened movement validation to block toe-raise exploits<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Introduced a visible shoe-connection indicator and a one-tap reset\/reconnect<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Heel Raise<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>To better support the cognitive \u201cspot the difference\u201d task:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Increased new-item visibility (outline\/flash\/brightness)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Paired color cues with shape\/text indicators<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Adjusted timing so players can comfortably search while holding the heel raise<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">System &amp; PT Interface<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>On the system side we:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Continued shaping a two-layer PT interface: <strong>Simple<\/strong> (Easy\/Medium\/Hard presets) and <strong>Advanced<\/strong> (a small set of parameters such as stimulus frequency, directionality, step distance, and hold duration)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Began exploring clearer live visuals like expected vs. actual movement and simple trend views rather than dense data tables<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Worked with Conrad on improving Unity client stability and websocket reliability through longer streaming tests and better handling of timeouts<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Rethinking the Third Mini-Game<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Playtest results and ongoing hardware constraints also led us to re-evaluate our tandem-walking \u201cnarrow bridge\u201d game. We discovered that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Certain tandem-walking patterns are difficult for the current shoe hardware to detect reliably<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>When we try to fully 1:1 map complex PT movements into game mechanics, we often face a trade-off:\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Either the game is not very fun, or<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The shoe cannot sense the movement precisely enough, which creates frustration similar to our early Reactive Stepping experiments<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Because of this, we decided to retire the tandem-walking bridge game and explore a new direction for the third mini-game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We are now pursuing two design paths:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Abstraction Layer on Top of PT Exercises<\/strong><br>Use the inherently repetitive nature of PT exercises to drive progress bars or meters, and map <em>those<\/em> to a separate layer of gameplay. Our first prototype in this space is a <strong>mini-golf concept<\/strong>, where consistent, high-quality reps fill a meter that controls power and outcomes in the golf scene, instead of trying to literally move the avatar with every step.<br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Feedback-Only Motivation<\/strong><br>Explore how far visual, audio, and haptic feedback alone can go in motivating players, without adding a full game loop on top. The question is: <em>how much \u201cgame\u201d is actually necessary to keep people engaged in rehab?<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>In our Week 10 meeting, Conrad was particularly excited about the first direction and encouraged us to push the abstraction-layer approach further. He agreed that the second idea is valuable but noted that it is large enough to become its own semester-long research project, so he recommended we not pursue it fully within this course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Playtest Day Photos<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/renushu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/cropped-IMG_8939-1-scaled-1-1024x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-439\" srcset=\"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/renushu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/cropped-IMG_8939-1-scaled-1-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/renushu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/cropped-IMG_8939-1-scaled-1-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/renushu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/cropped-IMG_8939-1-scaled-1-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/renushu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/cropped-IMG_8939-1-scaled-1-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/renushu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/cropped-IMG_8939-1-scaled-1-1536x1536.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/renushu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/cropped-IMG_8939-1-scaled-1.jpg 1919w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-preformatted\">Playtesters enjoying their time.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Looking Ahead<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Going into Week 11, our goals are to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Further stabilize shoe connectivity and right-foot tracking<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Refine the PT interface presets and visuals<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Build out the mini-golf abstraction prototype for the new third mini-game<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Prepare updated builds for follow-up testing with therapists<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Week 10 was a turning point: we not only improved what we already had, but also clarified how ReNUSHU should balance <strong>real PT movement<\/strong>, <strong>hardware constraints<\/strong>, and <strong>playful abstraction<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-preformatted\">\n<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After our November 1 Playtest Day, Week 10 focused on turning real user [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/renushu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/renushu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/renushu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/renushu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/renushu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/renushu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":614,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/renushu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612\/revisions\/614"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/renushu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/renushu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/renushu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.etc.cmu.edu\/renushu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}