Week 6: Finishing up our 2nd round of brainstorming and further prototype iteration
Week 6 has been a pretty busy time for Project Ditto, especially since this has been the first week this semester that we’ve actually had a full week to work! This week, we’ve been focused on iterating on the digital prototype of the Virus vs. Cells we created last week, as well as beginning development on our paper prototype, which we were finally able to create by the end of the week.
We also officially moved our design documentation onto a dedicated GitHub page, which you can find here! From now on, anyone who is interested in seeing our weekly design updates will be able to access our Design Documentation GitHub via the Media link up top.
The Work This Week
Brainstorming: Round 2 Continued
Last week, Erin urged us to consider the following criteria when brainstorming our second prototype:
- Multiplayer with some form of asymmetric power dynamics
- Persistent/Shared World
- Multiplying states rather than replicating them
Erin also encouraged us to think of the game as having 2 distinct phases. In Phase 1, the game might have a max of 4 players, so the early stage of the gameplay might be a lot smaller and intimate. But for Phase 2, we would then use State Share to amplify the gameplay from Phase 1 and exponentially increase the number of players accessing the state, going from 1-4 people to hundreds or possibly thousands. The most important part of these 2 phases, other than the gameplay itself, was the transition between Phase 1 and Phase 2. At what point do we use State Share to amplify what has transpired in Phase 2, and how will that manifest?
Keeping these criteria in mind, we spent the first 1/3rd of the week racking our collective brains to figure out another game format that was both distinct from the Virus vs. Cells concept while also taking advantage of the above criteria.
Based upon our feedback from last week’s client meeting, it seemed like our “One Hour One Life”-esque concept utilized these three categories well-enough in theory, so we used that concept as a base during our ideation process.
Iterating on Virus vs. Cells
Wenyu was not only able to implement the split-screen function, but also find a way to send the duplicated screen onto another monitor within one Unity file. This means that we could potentially have 8 monitors hooked up to one PC to simulate the state share mechanic, negating the need for networking entirely! Woohoo!
We also improved the design of the prototype’s map, as the version created last week had a lot of sharp edges that made it really difficult for the cell to move around, as well as occasionally glitching the cell by trapping them on a platform and distorting their form. As a result, Liangzheng worked this week to virtually sand down the edges of these platforms, as well as overhaul some parts of the map entirely.
Client Meeting
We did not have a client meeting this week since Erin is out of town, but we did update her on our above progress!
The Plan for Next Week
Our original plan was to test both of our prototypes (the Virus vs. Cell concept and our new Treehouse paper prototype) next week in order to see their viability.
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