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#Visual novel

#ASD

#Making Friends

Week 8 Group work Discussions And Chat

—Write By Maria

This week we had a guest talk who came around to us and gave us some ideas for the mechanic. E.g. Words moving around by themselves and having to catch them. Characters changing their question or the direction of the conversation mid answer. We liked them as they added some fluidity and immersion to the gameplay.

We then talked as a group and scrapped the tone puzzles and decided to keep the game simple as in only the important context pieces matter and give friendship points when forming an answer.

In preparation for the playtesting, Cindy’s wrote an updated script for Thursday and Nam put it into the game. Maria finished the classroom background but it wasn’t added in.

Talking Script V3Download

Feedback and notes from play testers:

Play tester 1

  • Wondered if she needed to use all the words given
  • Hard to understand if they must say yes or no in response to certain dialogue
  • no should be an answer
  • not very enjoyable, maybe give player the chance to learn something like Duolingo

Play tester 2

  • Should specify what ASD stands for
  • At first didn’t know she had to fill slots completely
  • Likes the concept
  • Need to make sure the game coveys the message properly, for example make sure players don’t walk away believing that ASD is something that other people don’t have to account for and putting all the responsibility on individuals with ASD

Play tester 3

  • Frustrating
  • Enjoyed the mechanic

Play tester 4

  • Tried to disagree as an answer but the game responded with the implication that what was said didn’t make any sense. Need to add alternate responses for Tyler
  • Objective not clear

Play tester 5

  • Added yeah at the end of the sentence instead of the beginning and it made the answer “wrong”
  • Likes how the words slide over when you remove a piece

Play tester 6

  • Like the gameplay
  • Didn’t know to press enter on keyboard as there’s nothing saying to on the screen

Play tester 7

  • Didn’t know to press enter
  • Likes the smooth gameplay like the words sliding over
  • Suggests adding an enter button on the screen

Play tester 8

  • Brutal and too unfair because the answers are too specific so if you arrange slightly differently it’s still considered completely wrong

Summary:

Most people put in the right answers just slightly differently giving them a negative and confused response which made the gameplay frustrating. Additionally, players didn’t know to press enter as it wasn’t anywhere on the screen. Some believed that the answers they were putting in were wrong because there was no enter button, making them assume it would automatically go when the correct answer was entered, so they rearranged their correct answers a few times for no reason. However most liked the smooth gameplay.