Another week gone as the project gathers steam!
After the busy week we had during week 6, we pulled back a little this week and re-evaluated what we had so far and how we need to proceed. We had plenty of information from last week which we collected from the children at the Carnegie Science Center. After collating the information, we discovered some interesting information that could be of very good use for our project. We had questions about the games they played, the tools they used on the computers and general experience with programming concepts and how they learnt it. We also had sections about storytelling and their areas of interest with regards to making games (We learnt that a lot of kids would start with music as the most important feature of their own game).
Simultaneously, we’ve also been busy with developing the technology and the product. This is happening in two areas parallely. Tianyi and Ruili are developing features on the frontend and working with Sophie on fitting it in with the UI. A feature that was freshly carved out was the ‘Save Project’ option, which allows users to save their work in the middle of a session. Miao meanwhile, is working on the Pixi engine. Next week we will try to integrate both these sections, so we can have a Minimum Viable Product and look at more direct playtesting options.
We also had several meetings with faculty instructors and client this week over our design and approach, and clarifying this with them. After a lot of research, we compiled a detailed list of design cycles and philosophies, of games that fit the genre and also those that don’t. We’ve summarized the flow in the following picture
Next week, we’ll be revising the list of our code blocks and adding to it, while starting to form a detailed design document and step-by-step walkthroughs from multiple personas, using our design structures as guidelines. See you all then!