We got very busy this week because the halves presentation is two weeks ahead and we don’t have a substantial prototype for show case. Most time of Monday is used building a dummy cardboard bioreactor. Based on our proposals made last week, we all agree that we strongly prefer working with the Hide and Seek prototype and thus the dummy bioreactor model is necessary for this AR solution. The dummy model is made of cardboard, with a hexagonal prism representing the major cylinder, and two stacking boxes for the control panel and bumpers. Gray tapes are used to stick pieces together as well as simulating the texture. But later, to save tapes, we switched to the design with printed textures. At the end of the week, the model is temporary suspended, because we slightly modified our proposal.
Because of the proposals, we had a client meeting with rich context. Our client is excited about the proposals of hide and seeks, AR Card game, and Vocabulary memorizing app. The client put forward some use cases where the necessity of dummy model becomes a limitation. Also, our client hopes it would be best if all the three functions to be all presents because they hit different aspects of training: spatial, sequence, and basic knowledge, respectively. But on the other hands, these three prototypes fit different use cases and thus iteration and playtesting are not built upon each other. And we selected Hide and Seek be the first one to implement.
We met with Jesse about gameplay design. He recommended us to switch to mobile VR instead of AR as the presence of dummy model can be a limitation. Also, mobile AR based on single camera has annoying issues like instantly disappearing and multi-track. This change introduced more work in player movement and 3D modeling, yet saved workload in AR detection and the hard problem of AR glitches.
As for our process this week on the 1st prototype, hide and seeks, we have made the bioreactor 3D model, the player teleport logic, task management system, task timer, ray cast interaction, and 3D model shader behavior when interacting. And next week, we hope we can finish the prototype in first half week, then playtest the UI and workflow on Wednesday or Thursday, and drill for the halves presentation.