Summary

This week, the team was focused on polishing our UI presentation as well as populating the living room level for the in-class playtest and the Ubisoft playtest. 

Timeline

1. March 11: In-class playtest. We got a lot of feedback by watching others play our game, while taking note of player interactions and communications as well as the questions that they raised. This helped us to figure out what could be improved upon. 
2. March 12: Ubisoft playtest. Got lots of valuable feedback from expert playtesters on how to improve upon our game given its current state. 

Progress

• Tutorial Level: Polished tutorial level with a focus on UI
  • Includes lighted pathways for the pet to follow
  • Includes more obvious arrows pointing to tasks
  • Enforced task completion ordering to ensure that players learn certain actions before others 
• UI
  • Created a splash screen that transitioned into the first level
  • Created tutorial overlays to communicate the premise of the game and some controls. 
  • Incorporated UI designs for the gamepad and the keyboard. 
• Living room
  • Set up more grabbable/climbable objects and tasks
  • Set up control to illuminate interactable objects 
• Audio
  • Imported audio tracks for level completion. 
• Discussion
  • Held team-wide discussion on our next steps, specifically on whether we want to incorporate a new level or polish the existing levels. 

Challenges

• Bugs found:
  • Gamepad controls would not respond to tutorial
  • Pet rotates / moves in the attic level when players are not controlling it
  • When split, the dash mechanic caused the dogHalf to get stuck in walls or on top of each other.
  • Different ordering of the tasks completed in the attic level caused the rug to not be activated which prevented entry into the next level. 

• Making the UI and tutorial more obvious to players took lots of trial and error 

Next Steps 

• Decrease audio sound track for collisions
• Look into tutorial task ordering issue
• Finish task design for living room
• Start populating the basement 
• Work on cat/dog textures