Team Joule is now deep into the grind of production, and as a matter of fact, it marks halfway through our targeted production phase, which ends in just two short weeks (yikes!).
The main focus of this week is branching out beyond the groundwork of the core game we laid over the previous two weeks into the multiplayer experience we’re hoping to create. In order to make that happen, there was a lot of under-the-hood technical work as well as design work to be done.
On the tech side, we received our 4 computers, three of which will power our touchscreens and one of which will act as the hub and will power two TVs under our current design scheme. We also received 2 touchscreens for evaluation this week and are hoping to make a decision next week once we’re able to get them into the field for user testing.
As we learned a few weeks ago, Unity 3D, our development software, isn’t great for powering multiple touchscreens, so we opted to network multiple computers together, which was a big focus for this week. Additionally, because we want to retain player data from week to week, we needed to create a database to store those data. Both of these are integral to facilitating our experience, and our engineering team did a great job getting both of those up and running.
On the design side, this was a week of intense research and iteration on the educational plan in preparation for our plan to start implementing those features next week. The design went through at least four versions over the course of the week, evolving from a mish-mash of interesting story moments to an intensely focused week-by-week experience with a defined mission for each interaction. I’ll save the details for a different time, but know that the both the story and our definition of “personalization” in the experience have changed substantially.
In the art world, we’re finishing up the house with outdoor elements, an upgraded car model, and an A/C system—it’s shaping up nicely.
Until next week, stay green!
-Team Joule