Week 11: New York and Testing pt. 2

Over the weekend we took a quick weekend trip to New York to test our current build in the actual space of Washington Square Park.  We also had a few other questions we needed to answer and assets we needed to test.  The trip proved to be very useful as it informed us about how people would move in the space and what we needed to change to accommodate that.  It also became clear that we needed to change the main map a bit so that it was easier to know where you were in both the physical and virtual space.  Since it rained the entire time we were in New York, another important thing we figured out was that our game can in fact be played in the rain.

The weekend trip was extremely useful and we came in on Monday ready to work hard.  Based on what we learned about the space and the map, we knew we had to make some changes on the art side.  So Jack began to overhaul the map and the icons.  We were able to adjust tech parameters on the fly while there, but we also had to make the final changes once we got back.  We also began work on redesigning and implementing the remaining events.

This coming Saturday is the User Playtest Day that is being held at the ETC.  We wanted to get as much into the game as we could before Saturday so that we could test as much as possible.  With that in mind, we worked hard as a team to create and build the remaining events and create an introduction for our game.  The introduction sets the tone of our game and informs the player of their role within the game.  We wanted to make a statement at the beginning about hunger and then ease the player into the game.

On Friday, it was all hands on deck to finish preparing for the User Playtest Day.  We implemented all the new art and sound assets into the build and began writing the survey for the playtesters to fill out after the game.

Next week, we plan to finish implementing all the features into our game and use the information from the playtest to tweak our game.  We are planning on running our game up on main campus as a part of the CMU Carnival.  This is substituting as our Soft Opening as it will be the only time before the festival that we will be able to run it with a large group of people.  Then we will have one week to make the finishing touches before we head off to New York again for the Games for Change Festival!