There are five weeks left for DoReMi Pets’ development. In order to boost up the final development, on Wednesday, the team had a long but very important meeting. We planned out for the rest of the semester based on the “big picture” the team talked in the meeting, about what we want the final product to have, and what are still missing.
We certainly want clear feedback to let player feel the connection with the music; we want the art to be completed–no system default placeholders anywhere in the game and all the assets should have consistent visual style. We also agree on a complete game flow is crucial, menu, tutorial, gameplay, pause, and summary, no one should be left behind. Last but not the least, we think the refined music arrangement, instrument hardware and codebase are as important when it comes to how great the product can be. This “product vision” list was broken down into detail tasks which allows every team member to have a clearer expectation about the final product.
We started having regular internal playtest every other day. Doing so not only helps keep every team member on the same page about the completion status, but also enable the team to find problems and to act on them right away. For external playtest, the team has scheduled two more playtest sessions with children: one in week 11, and the other one in week 14. However, we are still seeking other opportunities in between those two.
Based on the semester schedule and our playtest plan, we tweaked the project milestones. We are aiming to finish all the implementation by week 13, and leave out two weeks for final polishing.
The team has a busy couple weeks in front of us, but we remain confident in our ability to produce a quality product at the end of the semester.