After the quarters, we set a realistic project scope and planned out specific project milestones. We received a lot of helpful feedback from faculty and clients, and we were trying to integrate those feedback into our applications while keeping the core concept of our experience.
In terms of the storyline, Em fleshed out the 1969’s episode and main characters. For the 1969 episode, we are trying to create a connection to the actual historical world that inspired Wilson’s work like Two Trains Running, and we are using that play as another lens/resource to view that time. Currently in our storyline, we have the playable character as a helper to Aunt Ester, which is the imaginary character in August Wilson’s play. Currently in our storyline, she can be the playable character in other time periods as well, either Aunt Ester or the helper “Aunt Ester in training”, so she is a good thruline. By playing as her, the user encounter others who live in the Hill District naturally and learn more about them and the District by giving them advice and helping them with their problems.
Other aspects of the story we are focusing on are the places she visits in this story where she encounters people. These would be significant places or landmarks in the Hill District and places referenced or used as inspiration in Wilson’s plays, like Eddie’s restaurant, and even the house considered to be Aunt Ester’s house. As far as interaction goes, we are still exploring the possibilities now that we have an outline for the story; searching on the map for the places to visit is one interaction we are currently looking at.
Moving onto 2D art design, Shera created the Eddie’s Restaurant background and started line sketches for Crawford Grill based on Teenie Harris photos. We are still exploring the mood of the background scene using different textures and colors and the details to show the specific time period.
We also started basic UI design for dialogue box and AR interaction patterns. We wanted to get the basic structure for the transition between AR and 2D scene and have a consistent controller experience and menu UI on the screen. Gloria will create the information architecture for the menu bar and work on UI components for AR and 2D next week.
At the same time, we keep improving our AR prototype to develop more meaningful interactions to deliver a seamless time travel experience. We wanted to create a mini-game style interaction rather than simply moving the avatar. Zoltan came up with a new interaction idea that enables to rotate the physical map to find the right place to interact with. We expect to expand this interaction to motivate people to explore the Hill District in a fun way.
Lastly, we found good music resources in the public domain! We can directly use Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey’s songs in our application, and their music will transport people right away to the specific time period!