16 – 22 February, 2015:
Hilman, Sam, Hannah, Wei and Cheryl-Jean were happy to join Lending Hearts on a tour of Phipps Conservatory, on Sunday. It was great to get to talk to the kids and also get a feeling for what the monthly events are like, so that we could think more about how to connect these to the design of our experience.
Visiting Phipps Conservatory with Lending Hearts.
This week’s work was finishing up the constellations mini-game with the game design elements, completing the Lending Hearts home star navigation, and getting started on the customisation for personal planets. We started mid-week meetings where everyone shows what they are working on and what they’ve made. In addition, Sam showed the team how to use bug control and version tracking to test the current Unity build, and Cheryl-Jean showed the team how to comment and tag issues in Google docs, which the designers are expected to use to respond to the team’s queries in the design document to make it as comprehensive as possible.
Some of our work done this week included:
Updated constellation drawing with memory game.
Customisation of personal planet with items that can be scaled and rotated.
Leaderboard section of Lending Hearts home star navigation.
News section of Lending Hearts home star navigation.
Gallery section of Lending Hearts home star navigation.
On Friday, we had a chance to not only show these new features to the client, but have our first (unofficial) playtest. Vasso’s kids Nina, Stephen and Eirene came to the meeting and were excited to draw their own planet and play with the constellations game on the mobile devices and look at the customisation options we had on the computer. We got a lot out of this playtest, including some great art that now hangs in our project room, and we are happy to have had the chance to see kids interact with our game. We also talked more about the goals of the project and how the features linked back to our core values of creativity and companionship.
Drawing your own planet.
Next week will be focused on playtesting, including a “Playtest to Prove” workshop on Wednesday and a playtest session at Elizabeth Forward School District on Friday. One of our challenges will be coming up with a strategy and plan for our first official playtest. We will also need to balance this with completing the work that needs to be done and assets that need to be created for the customisation of the personal planets, and getting the constellations game to full functionality with the latest design. We are also looking forward to the Lending Hearts Gala on Thursday evening. It’s going to be a busy week.
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