Newsletter – Week 14 – “Nearing Completion”

Final Sprint to Softs

Our final week before soft presentations, week 14 was abuzz with activity. We launched the web version of our game Monday and had a large playtest that afternoon. This playtest, conducted with a general audience from the ETC, was aimed to expose data about playability and general game strategy. As a result, we realized many things in the UI that were confusing or overly complex. We have since worked to address as many as we could, including those regarding priority assignment for alternative paths, in-layout-mode saving, and clarifying the parts installation order screen. We also concentrated on some other elements such as providing players more information about the assembly machines, their speed, cost, and what they do.

Additionally, we realized the need for a thorough tutorial system, which is currently under heavy development. Technically, the game performed well, with limited to no connection issues between the database, registration, and gameplay. Results are also pending from a remote playtest setup to involve some professional engineers in the evaluation of our product. We thank all of those who participated for providing us with excellent feedback.

Tuesday was our weekly client meeting and we were able to have our clients play the game. With that networking issue finally resolved, they have not had any issues accessing game content though they did report some lag while playing. Finally, their feedback was highly positive, zeroing on some similar issues as our general user playtest while also mentioning some others. We are trying to implement as much as possible, but all feedback will be documented for future addition into the game.

This week has also been a blitz to generate the final content required for the semester like our 3 minute and 30 second videos, which are nearing completion, as well as addressing some in-game bugs such as balancing production cost numbers and calculations. Finally, a revised UI has been designed and various game and database components have been reworked to allow for its implementation.

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