[Week 6] Development Blog: CRUNCHING THE PROTOTYPE

Once we had done some playtesting on our paper prototype in Week 5, we wanted to finish a digital prototype. We had the core loop, and we could always reference the paper prototype. We had three important meetings on Thursday (faculty meeting, client meeting and first years’ project shadowing), and we had already promised a prototype, so it was time to crunch.

We delegated the tasks efficiently, made some quick design choices that could be easily modified later. The programmers built a save system so that every time the user does not have to start the experience over again. Our previous terrain contained a green patch which did not really suit our aesthetics, so our artists had another thing added to their already busy checklist. Meanwhile, we borrowed a terrain from Unity’s asset store that we felt suit our play style.

We also polished up the mini game gameplay, adding randomness to it. It increased the difficulty, but it was still not our design priority yet. We just wanted to put it in so that the loop feels complete. On Wednesday night, we finished our prototype and we were ready to play test during the meetings next day.

Our artists were concurrently working on different art assets including buildings, terrains, rock. We also decided to put some Easter eggs by modelling buildings in Pittsburgh like the Cathedral of learning, UPMC building, CMU Walking To The Sky, etc.

To conclude our final week, we had our meetings with faculty. We playtested with them and got some feedback. After that, some first years’ came to our project room as a part of the project shadowing assignment, where they are assigned projects depending on their interests. We introduced our project to them and also playtested with them.