Hair styles:
As our doll character, Makenah is responsible for our hair braiding part for the game, several hairstyles are needed. Esi asked for a hair down version of Makenah and another hairstyle. Esi was setting up the hair down version as the default so that players can feel like they are helping Makenah with different hairstyles from scratch.
For the other hairstyles, I researched different creative tied up braids and I found these suit Makenah most.
I think it will be better to have more hairstyles for Makenah or else only two hairstyles (excluding the hair down version) will be too boring, so that I sent my research to Esi and see if she wants more designs.
Final decision:
Dolly half tied twin tails & princess hair style
After finishing the hair style, I need to make “hair icons” as part of the game mechanic, players can choose Makenah’s hair style when they interact with her. I am making each icons in different colors to state clearer difference between hairstyles
Hair styles I have now:
Hair icons:
Facial expressions
We also need a surprised and sad facial expression for our story telling
Sad: When the protagonist Karimah looks sad, Makenah will also feel the same
Surprised: She will look shock when she learn about something she out of her knowledge (e.g. school, homework)
I have the surprised and sad facial expression for each hair style for easier programming
Sad
Surprised
Play test session
During our open day, we were happy to have guesses come visit our studio and play test with our game! Esi made a feedback form for our participant after the play test, and I jotted down their comment towards it.
Feedback:
1. Liked the visual, music
2. The interactions quite difficult to attempt, the controlling of mechanics were confusing at the beginning, but overall is fun to collect the objects
3. The crafty aesthetic could match more with some UI as well, such as the moving mouse
Discovering our deficiency
2. Esi and I were both new to Unity, some parts are lagging and our solution at that time was asking players to reset the camera.
3. Two person is working, Esi will first work on the control before me then I will know what UI should design. so that the UI design was not completed before the play test.
Solution:
2. Talk to our technical tutor, Ross, to spot the problem and fix the bug. Having clear instructions/ moving guide for players to understand how our game works.
3. It was my mistakes, I should have a basic knowledge of what I UI I need to design. For the rest of the journey, instead of just asking Esi what we need for the game, I should do some UI draft before head, then decide what we should keep what we should withdrawn together. These allow us to have ideas of what UI we could include earlier, and could implement our plan earlier.
Reflection: This is the end of sprint 3, overall it was fun, hair styles/ icons are creative and fun to design. After he play test, I got to know what I should work on more and what I should keep up to. I am going to talk to more people and receive comments from them in order to have my work to it’s best version