This week was set aside for design decisions and preparation. We had no playtests, but we had a visitor from MC2 and had a very productive meeting with Dave C. He reminded us of the importance of having a design framework, so we spent the rest of the week creating design documents (like personas, user stories, and design pillars) and working to finalize our design that we will build for the end of this semester. We also spent a lot of time working on and preparing for our halves presentation next week.

In our 1/2s presentation, we want to emphasize our new design framework and how it is derived from all the work we have done during the first half of the semester, including research, feedback, and observations from playtests. We also want to show our current design so we can get feedback on it and make sure it is as good as we can make it before we finalize our budget next week.

From design:

This week we brainstormed and came up with the general idea of what we want to build for our final experience. Each of us brought some ideas of what to do. And the idea of using tactile map was something that we were all excited about. I personally brought the idea of doing multi room experience with linear story in “Alice in Wonderland” theme. However, the room is not big enough to afford more than three rooms. However, when Dale suggested a room with multi puzzles to solve a centralized puzzle, I still thought moment of “opening/unlocking” different room could enrich the experience. Therefore, as a group, we decided to have two rooms where guests need to solve three puzzles to open another room, where the final treasure could be found. And of course, tactile map will be there to educate the guests.

We are looking forward to presenting our 1/2s presentation next week as well as finalizing our budget and beginning to purchase materials. We want to be in a good place for the following week to build build build, so we can participate in the ETC playtest day on November 5th.