Newsletter #12
This week was a very intense one for Team Kotodama Fruit Juice.
Preparing for the soft opening we were working very hard on turning our alpha version into beta. In order to do that we analyzed the results of our previous playtest, which was extremely valuable. Besides improving the script and adding new interesting questions from our game character Fred, we made a bunch of other changes.
They included adding new animations for Fred’s reactions, enriching the grammar for input phrases, improving the debug interface, so we can playtest more efficiently, using the lights and fixing pointing animation to clearly demonstrate that the character is addressing the player while asking questions.
This time we also experimented with the audio. To make the character sound more alien-like, we processed his voice with some neat effects. Also after getting feedback about the wish of the surrounding atmosphere to be more lively, we added 3d background noise which improved the feeling that you are in the comedy club with other people. People in the audience now shout out phrases to Fred, which encourages players to interact with the character more.
To improve the atmosphere even more, we worked on the environment, adding a pretty lighting system, adding new assets and changing the placeholder ones. We will continue doing that next week as well.
Many other small changes were made along with fixing the bugs and the playtest on Friday clearly demonstrated that we move in the right direction. By the end of the next week, after adding a new version of the script and implementing the next series of improvements, beta version of our project will be ready.