After six weeks of development, we finally reached our first major presentation milestone: Halves. Before sharing SpellChemists with faculty and first-time players, we made a few final updates to prepare the experience for both events.
Creating Elemental Clay Pucks
As the physical pieces are a central part of interacting with the Board, we made these clay pucks for our project. These pucks are the tools players use to cast spells in the Arena, with each one corresponding to the element required by its spells. The clay versions are prototypes rather than the final pieces. They allow us to explore the size, shape, and visual presence of the decorations before committing to a finished design. For the final version, we plan to create 3D-printed decorations that can be attached to the pucks.
Wednesday: The Halves Presentation
On Wednesday, we presented the progress we had made during the first half of the semester. We introduced the current gameplay design and explained how players move between the Foundry and the Arena. We also shared the development of our UI, character art, physical pucks, and the broader visual direction of the project.
Friday: The Playthrough
The playthrough is new to Halves. It gave us a great opportunity to hearing feedback from faculty after they actually play the project.
For this playthrough, we provided preset character builds for the playtesters:
During each session, we observed how players approached movement, physical rune placement, spell selection, and elemental interactions. The playthrough also gave us a chance to see how the clay pucks, Arena UI, and current visual feedback worked together during a complete match.
We received a great deal of valuable feedback throughout Halves week. After the break, we will use what we learned from both the presentation and the playthrough to continue developing and refining SpellChemists. Stay tuned!