30 March – 5 April, 2015:
We have entered the finalisation phase of our project, and much of the final weeks will be focused on polish (especially UI) and refinement of what we already have in place. Each week until softs, we will focus on a different component of the project. This week, we will be looking at the whole user experience and thinking about the player’s journey through the Lending Hearts universe. In week 12, we will focus on the galaxies, solar system and Lending Hearts star, and in week 13, we will return to the core gameplay of the constellations and customisation games.
Production shifted a little this week and Cheryl-Jean implemented some process changes. First of all, we are now using digital task management through our bug tracking system, logging tasks that come up from playtests and meetings. Additionally, we met every day this week to go over the different scenes, screens and tutorials we need for the whole experience, walking through a part of the player’s journey each day, creating paper versions of each layout and logging tasks based on that. These paper layouts answered many design questions and filled in some gaps in knowledge, ensuring everyone is on the same page.
Design diagrams detailing each scene.
As for project progress, Wei designed the function and navigation for the gallery, wishing volcano and solar system, and Ruchi created tutorial and help screens. Hannah focused on UI for the solar system and visit scenes. Hilman implemented gallery functionality and made updates to the solar system scene, which now allows planets to be selected and information to be shown. Finally, Sam worked on the backend system for the wishing volcano and unlocking items, as well as loading screens, toolbars and help buttons.
Solar system scene as of week 11. Planets are moving and player’s planet is indicated.
Gallery functionality as of week 11. Implemented by Hilman this week.
Tutorial screens created by Ruchi for opening of app for first time, created this week.
Visit scene layout created by Hannah this week.
Contribution or “making a wish” scene and dragging to volcano created by Sam this week.
Coin animation and progress bar for wishing volcano, created by Sam this week.
Unlocking items created by Sam this week.
On Friday, we had our fifth playtest which took place at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh. As it was our first time there, we had a little trouble approaching kids of the right age group and setting up the playtest. This playtest taught us a lot about what worked and what didn’t in the UI since we were testing with younger kids, and also informed our future playtests at the Children’s Museum. With a better, more complete build and a clearer plan for our next playtest on Monday, we hope to improve on our playtesting process and effectiveness.
After covering the whole experience this week, we want to narrow it down to the Lending Hearts Star next week, focusing on the gallery, newsboard and wishing volcano scenes and the galaxies and solar system. We are thinking ahead about what we will need to finish by the end of the semester for a complete experience, and prioritising features as such. Finally, we will continue playtesting with two more visits to the Children’s Museum to learn more about how we can improve the experience we are building.
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