Vis Viva Week 13:
This week our team started the week with a playtest at Elizabeth Forward. We received some useful feedback and saw what adjustments still needed to be made, such as changing the layers to grayscale because students were using colors instead of shapes to analyze and improving the tutorials. After, we spoke with both the teachers and Dr. K who were excited and happy with the experience. While at the school we also spoke with Bruce who would be working on the construction of the installation.
Which brings us to… The installation! This week we went from cardboard concept and computer model to a nearly completed installation in one week.
We will be working to get all the smaller details worked out next week when we go to playtest, but the TVs and speakers arrived and the pieces will be assembled next week. Our team is also planning on going out to assist with the painting of the installation.
We are in the process of finalizing the parts needed in the installation such as last minute button changes, which LEDs to use in the background, and how they will be placed on the installation. During the week our team worked to make changes based on the playtest feedback and prepare for halves. We are working on implementing improved tutorials and story into the game. We also made some changes to make each stage flow a little smoother and make sense within the story of the experience.
We ended the week with another playtest, this time at Beth Center. This is the first time this client has seen our progress on the project and they were excited to see and hear what we were making. It was good to get an idea of how our experience will fit into their lab, and also how the teachers intend to use it. We had a group of students playtest the game and they thought it was fun and that it helped them learn about this topic. Through the playtest, we discovered that layer properties like permeability and layer shape are not currently included in curriculum, so we needed to give a little more explanation. This will also be included in the final story of the game, but it also provided the teachers the opportunity to explain more in depth, the science behind each stage as the students played.
Over the weekend our team will get the next iteration of the game ready and prepare what we will be showing at our Soft presentation on Monday. Next week we will probably set up a time to go paint the installation and plan out button placement.