I asked the Bird,
“What is it, about those seeds,
That you enjoy so much?”
We got a lot of information from playtest day, so now our goal is to somehow use that to refine our game before Soft Opening!
The main thing we need to solve is how different levels of experience affect a player’s ability to understand the multi-perspective rendering. For players with experience in VR, we are not asking for that big of a leap. We want them to play as if they are in normal VR, with the added complication of having to “ignore” one of the versions of an object. For people without VR experience, due to the fact that they don’t know how they are “allowed” to interact with the objects, end up getting stuck when we introduce too many new things at once. Essentially, we observe in players new to VR that while they are trying to figure out how to interact with floating objects, we then start showing them two of those objects, and asking them to ignore the reality of one of them. Those two things happening at once prevents them from figuring out either.
The second thing we need to solve is the overall progression of the game. Currently, it looks like this:
There are three “sets” of items, and when you use an item from one of these sets, the next one appears. When you use an item from Phase 3, the game ends. Currently, using the Ring triggers a music change and fireworks to start, but the other two have… less… or rather, nothing. So it is very clear why the game ends when you use the ring, but unclear when you choose anything else. And because all these tracks are independent, players have no way of knowing that there were even any other “game-ending” options! So we’re looking into combining these tracks.
Also this week, our resident K-12 guy Anthony brought in some elementary schoolers to try out our game!
Also during the week, Frank finished up the model and animations for the Bird! The Bird was originally intended to eat seeds directly out of the players’ hands, but that ended up being too difficult. So we also added a container of bird seed that the bird can eat out of!
How majestic!
Also new this week, Ice Cream!
This one is my favorite, because the “eating” effect is actually kind of fun, accompanied by this sound I made!
And of course by “made” I mean that I recorded me making a licking sound.
That’s all for now, I hope to have more news about the solutions to those problems I mentioned at the beginning for you next week!