If you have been following with the blog and read the previous week’s post, you know that a lot of design changes were made then. This week was about polishing and building out this new stripped down version of the game. A week into this process (and just 2 weeks from soft opening!) these changes have really helped set a clear direction for the team. Everyone in the team has a much better idea of what we want our final deliverable to look like and how to get there. We settled on some simple mechanics to minimize points in the game where the player might get confused, and removed everything that didn’t help with this. Here’s our new version of the game.
New Version
Players are dropped into the world directly. Instead of a long-drawn introduction to teach players the mechanics and best practices for the game, we just relied on simple text cues to let them know what they have to do, like look around to scan more of the world, walk around, and look down at the ground. Also, players now start off holding the Tango like a traditional tablet, and after these instructions have be en understood, are asked to put the headset on. This straightforward approach helped reduce confusions for players quite a bit.
We also simplified the gameplay. Players no longer have a pet around. They explore the world and find wireframes of objects scattered around the world. When they use their hands to fill up these wireframes, they transform into fully-modelled objects!
We also completely revamped our start screens and UI. Players will now be able to watch a video tutorial detailing all the precautions and best practices to follow to use the device instead of having to read through the details each time.
Next week is going to be a short one. We will be on break from wednesday for thanksgiving. So some polish on monday, a small informal playtest on Tuesday, thanksgiving festivities for the rest of the week, and then softs! We’re almost there!