Week 5

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ETC silicon valley campus had its quarter semester presentations this week. We were very happy to have Anthony Daniels visiting us before the quarters. Anthony helped us improve presentation skills by providing his professional theater techniques. Team Crescendo Encore spent a large portion in preparation and it turned out well.

Crescendo Encore has been continuing to update its prototype. In week 5, we created a menu system, added new design features and implemented UI placeholders. The timpani is the first instrument working in our prototype. Because we found a portable Xbox peripheral for making it,Timpani’s delay problem from last semester was solved painlessly. From the second half of this week, we have switched back to the Clarinet, and we are hoping to have a playable one in Week 6.

Crescendo Encore researched heavily on the UI for music/rhythm games that are out in the market. According to the four instruments we have and what we found out from the research, a horizontal UI concept and a mixed orientation UI concept have been fleshed out.

We also had a couple of playtests this week. Besides the after-presentation playtests, we had two extra guests try out our current prototype. Early this week, Anthony Daniels played our prototype with the Timpani and Xbox controller. The game was intuitive to him because he got the idea immediately without being instructed how to play. He thought the user experience during the waiting time between the game starting and the first note being hit needs to be improved. On Thursday afternoon, we were very glad to have Eugene Lee play our prototype. Eugene is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur in computer software and speaker of TEDx American Riviera in 2011. Eugene is also an accomplished musician, about which he shared his childhood experience with us. Eugene was asked by parents to learn piano when he was little. But he found true enjoyment when he started to play with friends and social in music. Eugene suggested that we concentrate on the harmony and let players take turns. Crescendo Encore will take his interesting experience and insightful suggestion into our design.