After coming back from easter holidays we began to focus on the final playtest event that was going to happen in week 10, we were told to make posters and also recommended to make merch, so right off the bat I thought about making stickers for it.
We talked again as a group and had a finalising discussion about the mechanic being primarily text based with focus on the most important context words for success, and the additional ideas we didn’t get to add during the previous playtest, for example the mechanics that Fiona suggested in week 8 after the playtest.
She had sent a large document with varying mechanic ideas. Out of what she said I liked gameplay 2 and 3 the most. 3 outlined an anchor idea where the player would have to hold an item to regain focus when the words disappear to get the words back and releasing it would make the words disappear again. Gameplay 2 was about the word puzzles and how some of the pieces would just be repeating what the NPC said, which is a form of echolalia. I mentioned these to the rest of the team, to which they liked and were on board with.
I also brought back an idea I had since the beginning of the project. Clicking the NPCs like what they’re wearing etc. to prompt new dialogue options or extra friendship points.
Cindy also began working on player feedback UI for friendship points and also made more placeholder UI designs.
So I resumed background drawing and updated the classroom.
Because we had to get stuff done for the playtest, I decided to leave any non-explored ideas behind and committed to making all the backgrounds yellow as I didn’t have time to think about new ideas.
After finishing the classroom, I began working on the front gate, however the perspective was really messing with me, and it took many iterations to get the base proportions right. Because of how long it took me, I couldn’t even just finish the base rough line art, and I had to leave it unfinished. To make up for the loss I worked on a different outside area that could be used instead. The outside cafeteria area, which I decided is connected to the front of the school and the gate.
Because I didn’t have time, I took the major reference for this background, traced it, and coloured it in yellow, brown and orange hues using the Shapes fill brush and an Airbrush on Krita.
On this same Thursday I began sketching the chibi designs for the stickers I hoped to make. First, I drew very small versions of the poses I wanted them to be in, then I sketched them in large. I then took a picture of them, emailed them to myself, and copy-pasted it into Krita, where I traced them for line art and coloured them in green, the shade of green based off how light or dark I imagined their colour palettes to be if they weren’t green.
In a time crush I also changed the greenish colour scheme of the inside cafeteria background to be yellow as well so I could send them into the group chat for Nam to insert into the game for Friday.
Friday:
This mosring Nam sent the groupchat the itch.io link for the game which i played. It was great and functional! The fruits of our labour payed off, and i noticed that he managed to put the mechanic Fiona gave us into the game. However, I had issues with the leaf swiping, it wasnt working on my laptop, probably because i didn’t have a mouse, so i brought it up to Nam as he asked us if there was any bugs, etc.
Before the playttest i tried to print the stickers, but i wasnt able to as the printer wasnt working and the PC couldnt find the printer i was looking for before it was too late.
The playtest event went well, many people played and liked the game, many also really liked the backgrounds, which is good. Me and Cindy kind of took turns taking notes, and this is my part.
Feedback:
• It’s not obvious that the teddy has to be clicked multiple times.
• Leaf swiping mechanic isn’t obvious enough, some players don’t realise they can swipe them away and try to click under them.
• Player wishes it was longer by at least one more day because they were interested.
• Game is too fast paced and difficulty progresses too fast; it should be more spaced out throughout the narrative.
• The term “fragments” can be confusing and player though the fragment pieces in the UI were part of the gameplay
• Tutorial says “fragments into fragments” which is confusing
• Player questions why a teddy bear
• Player thought that when the “press space” mechanic came up, they just had to press space to pass
• Many players kept pressing space because they didn’t know the words would come back, causing confusion when Tyler kept talking like they answered him. Pressing space should be limited to this mechanic and the words should come back quicker.
