Overview of Week 13
- Polished our experience: VFX, SFX, emotions, eating animation
- Soft opening playtest video
- Gathered feedback from soft opening and discussed our next plan
It’s Soft Opening Week! Our team worked hard to get our project to a place for soft opening and were able to record and show our soft opening video successfully. Before video recording, we needed to be done polishing our experience including VFX, SFX, emotion, and eating animation. Please see our video below!
Also, during the soft, we got a lot of valuable feedback from faculties. With this feedback, we had a team meeting, and we feel very positive rounding out the finishing touches on our experience. Below are some of the feedbacks:
- The whole premise is about being social. How can you better show communication and collaboration between the players.
- The experiences need to be playful and fun. Right now it seems like two people are doing things but not necessarily together
- Filter all your iterations through the social lens
Shirley Saldamarco
There were several fun interactions that reinforced the “social” aspect of the project. Some we played before, like the board balancing the ball, high five, clapping, and some were new.
Since that was the stated goal, you might want to push on refining those social elements in these last couple weeks. One of the things that were missing was communication between the players. If this is social there should be activities that naturally cause engagement and verbal interaction. Make sure the experiences are playful and that people are having fun. Some things I still have questions about: why am I allowed to stick my hand all the way in the fire the items that are pulled out of the magic box sometimes feel a little curious/confusing. eg. an alcohol bottle that gets thrown into the fire. we talked about having only two avatars and both are white skin/blue eyes. It’s too late to create additional avatars, but for the future think about showing global diversity. if possible allow players to choose or customize their avatar. I think this is a positive first step into showing that social AR works and can be fun. You mentioned that you solved the networking problem. Great. How difficult would it be (in the future) to add additional players?
I thought this project was all about fun in social exchanges. Show the success – and failures – of the different experiences you tried. Tell us why they worked and why others did not work.
Ralph Vituccio
Overall impressed with progress and direction. The team had a good sense of direction and engagement in the project.
– Sticking your hand in fire seemed odd, unrealistic, and an unnecessary simulation.
– Whereas person-to-person games/activities are cool, eye contact is fundamental for more meaningful social interactions. More interactions involving eye contact will make it stronger. Pouring a glass of wine and toasting was perfect.
– An innovative concept that needs deeper exploration in both AR networking and research in personal interactions in this space.
– I see a possible future in using this tech with applied behavior analysis, social skills training, occupational and physical therapy, or sensory integration therapy.