Hello!
The team spent this week preparing for quarter walkarounds. This is an opportunity for an ETC project team to discuss its plans with the ETC faculty and get as much meaningful feedback as possible. This helps the team understand what is going well and what needs to change. Depending on the nature of the feedback, an ETC team can decide to continue on its path or change course.
In order to get the best feedback possible, we need to prepare for quarters in the best way possible. One way to do this is to talk to the instructors about our ideas. Words, however, can be confusing and may hurt our chances of getting useful feedback. As JK Rowling says, “Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic. Capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it”.
So… How do we present our work in the best way possible?
It is simple: BUILD SOMETHING!
The programmers, thus, spent the week building a prototype of the game. The prototype did not need to be aesthetically pleasing. It just needed to be functional and enough to get the job done, which in this case, was to present our ideas as clearly as possible. The prototype showed how a guest would navigate through the experience, control the main character and interact with objects in the virtual world.
The producer spent some time preparing a formal presentation for Quarters and setting up other project management necessities, including a meeting with our client. In the client meeting, the team provided a few updates about the progress of the project. Our team received some resources from the problem development team at CyLab, which will play an important role in the design direction for the project in the near and distant future.
Our designer spent the week creating a design document that will act as a point of reference for the rest of the team throughout the semester. It will be a key document when making implementation and artistic decisions. The document will be updated from time to time and made more comprehensive as the project progresses.
Our artist was busy working on the branding materials for our team including a poster, half-sheets (small pamphlets that describe the project), and the team logo. We also met on the weekend to make some final amends to our presentation for quarters and to click our team photo!
– Himanshu