xhaler

Week 8 – March 9th

Spring Break Week!

This week is finally Spring Break. Our team can finally take a break, reflect on our past challenges, and set goals and plans for the second half of the semester.

What we have done

  1. 4 prototypes to showcase breathing mechanics
  2. Intro scene for narrative connection
  3. Initial story structure
  4. Refined belt position
  5. The basic foundation for pattern detection.
  6. [Add more if I missed]

What we have learned

  1. Synced visual feedback is effective.
  2. Teaching the player how to use the breathing mechanic we implemented is crucial. (such as Archery) 
  3. We shouldn’t put too much pressure on the players.
  4. Make the effect significant.
    1. [Jing] What effect? [Jack] I guess James is saying the effect you achieve after performing the correct breathing pattern, such as a power shot of your arrow [Jing] Got it.
  5. belt position
  6. Player’s feeling about
    1. Diving: nervous
    2. Archery: fun
  7. A variety of breathing interactions
    1. Hold action is good for Dangerous areas
      1. Diving
      2. Poison smoke
  8. [Add more]

Questions

  1. What’s our game’s experience?
    1. Directly tell players what they want to do, don’t let them guess.
    2. If we want them to do puzzles, teach them the essential element first.
  2. Bluetooth connection between headset and the belt. <- Jing
  3. What does ‘an effective deliverable’ mean to you?
    1. Alex: Showcase the breathing interaction. Showing how it works. (From user perspective)
    2. Lawrence: Demonstrate how breathing can interact with objects in the scene. VFX, material, animation. (From an art perspective) Combine those prototypes into a really continuous gameplay. Scope
    3. Jack: Explore breathing and integrate with traditional gameplay. Make breathing combined with the traditional gameplay interesting. <- What is interesting? For example, what is the difference between traditional button press and the breathing input? How can breathing make the game experience different?
    4. James: A variety of breathing interactions that evoke different kinds of emotions.
      Basically is what we are doing right now. So I don’t think we are really wasting time.
  4. What breathing mechanic should be included next in the project?
    1. 1st: Blowing Fan <- James
      1. Easy to implement.
      2. Help increase the variety of level design
    2. 2nd: Shallow Breathing (user test orientated) -> Heavily playtest required.
      1. Sneaking, crunching. Interesting. <- James
    3. 1st: Inhale interaction. -> Intuitive action. (Visual feedback) <- Jing
    4. 2nd: Run -> Heavily playtest required.
      1. Apply visual effects when players use rapid breathing. <- Jing
      2. Don’t cut off from the first level.
      3. Data will be messier

We can separate those tasks for two programmers, since these activities we all want them to be included into our final deliverable.

  1. What is the most important breathing mechanic to put into the final deliverable?
    1. Alex: All of our discovered prototypes.
    2. Jack: Link them from easy to difficult. (ex: shallow is easier than rapid)
    3. Lawrence: Include variation of breathing pattern.
    4. James: Some kind of blowing action: fan/wind/fire
    5. Jing: Introduction using inhale & exhale interactivity with smoke
  2. How can we improve existing prototypes?
    1. VFX, we can buy some ˊˇˋ
    2. Connect them together and polish the environment of diving and archery <- Lawrence
    3. Diving

Finalize visual UI -> The message to convey: Are they going to die or not?!

  1. With or without text on the screen
    1. With text: Display oxygen level clearly
    2. Without text: How to indicate oxygen level?
  1. Archery
    1. Find a way to teach players about the mechanics of power shot. <- Alex
    2. Arrow shouldn’t go through the model. <- James
    3. Add snap to controller when grabbing the bow. <- James
  2. Rocket

Can be supplemented with smoke visual effects, making the player smoothly learn how to interact with the rocket.

James: Sounds/haptics/visual fxs in priority order.

  1. How does the answer make the breathing mechanic more ‘effective’?
    1. Help players learn the mechanic. (Teaching) <- Alex
      1. What are the actions we need to teach players?
        1. Move-in-place
        2. Unlock door
    2. Improving visual feedbacks can enhance the diegetic feedback
  2. What drives our decision-making process?
    1. Filtered player feedbacks
      1. Prototypes
    2. Emotion -> interesting -> the goal we want to achieve at different levels. <- Jack: Clear definition of each level’s goal.
  3. What went well in our team communication, what could be improved?
    James: Improve on having effective discussion, and use the outcome of the discussion as a commonground, in a way that we can all answer Dave’s question with the same answer.
  4. What can help improve our conversation?
  5. Are you doing what you want in this project?
    1. Buffet 
  6. What is your expectation for the final deliverable?

A continuous game experience. 

  1. Why do we want to create a continuous game experience?

My personal answer is to test whether our design effectively introduces breathing mechanics, ensuring players learn naturally and transition smoothly into gameplay. 

Proving breathing can actually connect to the media. We see the potential of the breathing can become an interesting game input, and we already have many prototypes working. We want more than just prototyping, we also want to prove that breathing can be used in a real gameplay experience.