We spent this week on prototyping mini-games and researching escape room. Since we all agreed that Escape Room is our direction, we wanted to start with Gibbering Revelation as the mini-game to first prototype. We intended to find out what are the natural yet interesting ways to receive information from Spot’s moves. Such mechanics can be integrated into a wide range of games. It could certainly be in part of the Escape room. The process would also enable us to quickly get hands-on Unity development with Spot and understand the player experience more.
While working on prototyping, we also did some research about general rules that an Escape Room should follow. Through exploring 5 mini-games ideas and researching, we received feedback from our client. We’ll also share our plan and current work with the ETC faculty next week. With feedback from them, we believe we could refine our direction and make a long term plan based on the goal we set.
Gibbering Revelation 1st variation
From this, we learned that it was disturbing to interact with UI while observing Spot. Also, the moves were not intuitive enough to allow players to come up with something specific. Then we came up with a different variation. Instead of looking at the PC, players could interact with mobile devices. For example, they’ll use mobile devices to scan Spots to find out the meaning of the moves. We came up with demo videos of the 2nd iteration and showed them to our client.
Gibbering Revelation 2nd variation
Our client indicated that while it might be hard to hold players’ interest as the mechanics itself is too simple, the mechanics can be a good starting point of the game. For example, it could be a tutorial for players to understand Spot’s language. Or, it could be a prize/ clue that reveals some information when players complete a puzzle. Those are valuable feedback. The client had high expectations in this Escape Room direction. We’ll pay more attention on the gameplay – especially the parts of the interest curve and the balanced relation between puzzle, clue, and prize.
Escape Room Overview
Team Virtual Lunch
Working hard, we were also aware of the importance of work-life balance and team bonding, thus we had a virtual lunch together over Zoom on Friday! It was actually a lot of fun! We chatted about random things while having our “fancy” food delivery. (We could reimburse the expenses!)
See you in the next week!