Tech Development

We finalized the tutorial to wrap Up the game, fixing in-game small bugs, playtesting with the data collection the gives a sample for our client to review, and also as a reference of data collection sample. 

UI Final refinement

Problem: Difficulty Should Come from Design, Not Confusion

With a designed level, another important aspect that influences difficulty is control. A game can be hard, but it shouldn’t feel impossible due to missing information. We should provide the basic “tools” for players to overcome challenges and let their skill determine success. That’s where a tutorial becomes necessary.

Insight: Teach Just Enough, Not Too Much

Confirming with our client, we expect our players to start the game with some basic understanding of how to control, for the sake of enhancing our game’s data collection quality by filtering out accidental deaths caused by not knowing anything about the controls. However, over-instruction can backfire. We still expect players to fail—due to slow reactions, misaligned expressions, or discomfort with this unique control settings. 

The goal is to give an appropriate tutorial that helps players gain a basic understanding.

Solution: Iterating the Tutorial Through Player Feedback

We first introduced controls through UI-based text instructions. But playtests showed that plain text of facial expressions caused confusion.

Take “mouth roll”—a term from MediaPipe, it is hard to imagine. Then we tried to add themed emojis, but still, it was not clear  how to perform.

Let’s have more references—rather than “mouth roll,” let’s say it’s a “fold in lips.” Still confusing? It is an expression “the expression you make when trying not to laugh.” Lastly, if you’re still not sure what that is, hover over to see a real human image figure. This kind of off the entire art theme, although human img is most straightforward, we did not show it outside in order keep the game not off the theme

To validate understanding, players must perform each expression correctly to proceed. This interactivity confirms that you got it right. Through these layered cues and iteration, he majority of players understood what each expression meant.

A Safe Playground to Learn by Doing

Once players understood what they could do, we wanted them to learn when to do it—through play.

After completing instructions, players enter a tutorial playground. This space introduces every mechanic covered so far in the route setting. Starting with simple navigation and turns, moving to dynamic ones, and introducing each expression-driven skills one by one

There are no penalties here, just a space to build confidence and comfort with the system. No mastery,  just enough familiarity to begin playing.