Week 13 + 14 – Softs

Hi all! Welcome back to Xtension! 

We have decided to combine week 13 and 14 together for this post, as the two days we had for thanksgiving week were mostly used to refine the control system, namely the steering system.

While we made a lot of progress in the backend, we still only have the Level 1 and tutorial phase playable for the soft opening. In preparation for the soft opening, we did prepare a script for the ‘automata’ (Xtension team members disguised as AI) to gear up the guests once they finish the onboarding.

Soft Opening:

We were visited by three faculty members, for 30 minutes each. We received the following feedback:

• Drew Session
  • Think about the guest throughput
  • Add some sound while gearing up; it is awkward to get geared up by two people in complete silence.
• The arm does get pretty tired. Think about having an ‘autopilot’ feature where the team takes over the vehicle control even when the guests arms start to fall.

• Mo Session
  • There were a lot of technical difficulties with this session
    • Hand was not being properly recognized
    • The steering and forward movement is difficult to control with just one arm. It creates extremely uncomfortable and awkward arm gestures.
  • It is not clear where I am. Is it a vehicle? It is a large suit I’m wearing?
  • Have more digetic interface for the steering system. It could use more visual feedback to help the guests understand that their hand is being recognized. The webcam hand model the team is using for debugging purposes is actually really interesting.
  • Make sure the system works consistently across wide variety of guests.
  • Make design choices that emphasise why we chose hand tracking- justify it in terms of story
  • Beginning sequence felt long without imagery- helpful reference
  • The two TVs on either side of the guest are too far back. Pulling the chair back could help with the immersion.

• Mike Session
  • Dead end is a problem – it is very difficult and tedious to turn the vehicle around to get out of dead ends. 
  • Onboarding video is visually redundant. Try to make it more engaging with changing imagery.
  • The current physical build for the onboarding portion invites leaning against the ledge. It is not structurally sound, so think of ways to prevent guests from leaning, or reinforce it.
  • Story logic – qi is bad
  • Recruit students as performers?
  • Have an observer to improve throughout 
  • Groups ideally should go through

To be continued…