This week, our final week before halves, focused heavily on connections. This included both connecting the various parts of the project that the programmers have produced and connecting with others to help us playtest the texting app.
There weren’t any noticeably large design changes this week, though we conducted a lot of playtesting in order to figure out whether or not GoFundMe resonated with players as an indicator of the social standing of their character. We at first decided to go to playtesting night as per usual, but due to low attendance at playtest night, we couldn’t get the data we wanted. We decided instead to test with our classmates and faculty members at the ETC, conducting a total of 12 playtests on Friday. Unfortunately, the symbolism of GoFundMe did not seem to transfer over to the playtesters; instead of seeing it as a social indicator, they saw it as a second financial indicator, albeit a more abstract one. The design team is still discussing whether they will change the appearance of GoFundMe to make it appear more of a social indicator, or if they will instead embrace the way players currently see it and design based off of that.
Other things we learned from playtesting are as follows:
- Players originally didn’t notice that their text conversation had an impact on the GoFundMe, but a simple notification changed that.
- People have very different ideas about how to create a successful GoFundMe campaign, and most admit they would be unsure how to run a good one.
- The situation we tested was one where players had the choice to store undisclosed (presumably suspicious) items belonging to an old friend of theirs for $100 a week or not. 11 of the 12 players chose not to store the items, and were disappointed that they lost a friend in making that choice, but didn’t care deeply due to lack of knowledge of the strength of that relationship beforehand. We plan on fixing this by having the old friend reference an inside joke between the two characters before they present their situation.
- Some people felt uncomfortable making a final decision without getting more information about what the items to be stored were.
- Some people praised the interaction system and how realistic the diction felt.
Aside from responding to this feedback, the design team also refined the plan for the various clusters of content that will be released to the player throughout the game.
The programmers saw the finishing of some of the work from last week, connecting the texting app to the main view of the game, and using the database to provide the text in the conversations. A week’s worth of work and one long and grueling Friday night saw the seamless visual integration of these parts. There are still a couple known bugs with the display of the texts, and the bank app isn’t fully integrated yet, but significant progress has been made on both those fronts, and we feel like the prototype we have will be sufficient for halves.
In the art world, progress has been made on finalizing the layout of the notifications menu (which has tested well with playtesters), which included consulting with Shirley Yee, a typography expert, to make sure we are using good fonts. Shirley Yee confirmed that we are on a good track, and offered some ideas for minor improvements. The art team also made some images that will accompany news articles, as shown above.
Halves is days away, and Team Fortitude has accomplished a great amount of work in the development process. We’ve received plenty of feedback, the positive giving us the strength to keep pushing forward, and negative informing us how to fill the holes that must be filled to make Broke as strong as possible. We’re a team of determination and skill, and we’re ready to hear from the masses during our halves presentation on Wednesday. Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you next week!