GDC

*Spring Break*

Spring Break! Woo! Or, you know, sitting around working on prototypes… This week we spent finalizing our prototypes from last week, as well as going back and refining some of our earlier work. It was a busy week, but we got a lot done. We arranged another playtest session for this weekend, so hopefully we should get some good feedback on our new batch of prototypes. Meanwhile, we started working on our halves presentation, and we’ll continue adding to it as we get the results from those playtests. We’ve also begun discussing our plans for the second half of the semester, and have settled on the idea of doing a first person, on-rails, interactive “journey” as well as a more traditional “game” type experience. The idea is that they’re both simple to set up while offering content that will appeal to a wide range of audiences. The journey will also showcase the new motion floor, which is currently being installed.

We finalized our demos from last week, and made some determinations as to what worked and what didn’t. We weren’t huge fans of our Walking prototype, as the tight constraints of the maze were difficult to navigate, and looked odd on the 3 screens. Sword and Shield has proved engaging, and while some of the graphics can use a little work (having a giant sword and shield up close looks weird) this definitely seems like a promising prototype going forward. Throwing turned out to be a real challenge, as it’s difficult for the PS Move to know which screen it’s pointing at. Dodging has revealed a lot of interesting information, namely that sound is a great way to inform people of events happening on the side screen. Spiderman was also a surprising success because, even though the controls could use some work, web slinging on 3 screens turned out to be really engaging.

Aaron and I have begun working on a new 3D underwater navigation prototype that uses either keyboard or Xbox controllers. We also decided to branch out a little more, and Jimit, Mac, and Eric are exploring 2D puzzle and platformer games. Finally, we received a Myo this week, and Vivek has begun playing around with it and exploring its capabilities.

Next week is GDC, and the week after that is Spring Break, so we still have a good amount of work to do before halves. Some of our current prototypes need work, and we actually decided to go back and improve some of our older prototypes using what we’ve learned since quarters. We also want to run another set of playtests, and we need to put together our presentation. Fortunately, we’ll all be around during Spring Break, so we should have another solid week to take care of all this.

Wow, is it week 6 already? How time flies… Anyways, this week we’ve spent mostly working on our new prototypes. On Monday we met to discuss feedback from our Quarters presentation, as well as the results from our playtest session. Our biggest takeaway was that we needed to be more adventurous with our prototypes, and while we decided to continue working on the
prototypes we started last week, we added a couple new ideas to the mix.

So, in addition to Walking, Sword and Shield, Throwing, and Dodging, we also added “Spiderman” web slinging (based on our Kinect shooting prototype) and a head lamp-style flashlight, based on our PS Move shooting. Again, while these might not be games on their own, the idea is we’ll test to see which interactions are fun, and find interesting ways to combine or polish them in the second half of the semester.

We spent this week finalizing our prototypes for quarters, as well as starting our next wave of prototypes. We got all our interactions to the point where we could show them off, then had a playtest session with a half dozen people. We took notes, handed out surveys, and filmed the entire process. We haven’t had time to go over our notes yet, but that’s something we plan on tackling on Monday.

We also had Quarters on Friday, so we spent part of the week preparing for that. We added material from our playtests to our PowerPoint, and practiced our presentation. Quarters went very smoothly, and I think we got a lot of good insights from the people who visited our room. Again, we haven’t had time to go over it, but that’s the first thing we’ll do on Monday.

Quarters are almost upon us, so we’re starting to kick things into high gear. We’ve begun working on our 3 different prototypes, and have fairly complete experiences put together at this point. Eric and Emily are handling our shooting prototype, with Eric working on the Kinect version and Emily taking charge of the PS Move one. They’ve gotten aiming and gesture recognition working, and are now fine tuning the interaction. Aaron and Mac are working on the balancing interaction, and have recently gotten the motion floor integrated into the experience. Vivek has the Kinect version of the boomerang interaction working, and is working on fine-tuning it before starting on the PS Move version. Jimit is working on putting together organizational documents, as well as preparing for playtesting next week, while I’m putting together a scene for other people to test their mechanics in.

We’ve already begun planning for our next wave of prototypes, which include “walking”, “sword and shield”, “throwing”, and “dodging”. We expect to begin working on them next week, while also refining and playtesting our current prototypes. Next week is also Quarters, so we’re putting together a small presentation for that.