This week was a short week because of Labor Day and the Fundamentals Adventure Module (which half the team attended)! Despite this, we got started with two sound-related playtests as well as making progress on branding and our semester plan. We tested people’s ability to identify objects by sound and their ability to aim a projectile at a target using only sound.

The identification test was carried out on Wednesday. The objects we used to test were:

We also used an empty Pepsi can, an electric toothbrush as well as a box of cereal.

We put all the objects behind a cover board so that when playtesters walk in the room, they wouldn’t accidentally see them. Then we let them sit in front of the objects on a chair, facing away. After everything was settled, we produced different sounds by hitting objects with our hands or a metal chopstick or other simple operations.

The layout of the experiment:

In all we did 10 playtests with our classmates – the results are put into a form below. We use a √ mark whenever they directly get the material of the object right. If they made any more guesses on what exactly the object is or they were incorrect, we wrote down what they actually said.

The form above covers all details on the playtest. [click and view image to view at full size.] To sum it up, most people did a really good job at identifying general materials such as cardboard, wood, glass and metal. For objects with more unusual materials, such as the super thick glass lid and the two types of foams, the success rate of people recognizing them is lower. All the playtesters succeeded in recognizing the toothbrush as some sort of motor and the cereal as some kind of food. Interestingly, different people have different guesses on what exact kind of food it was. Our theory is that they were just hungry for whatever they guessed.

We also have two other findings: firstly, people tend to relate the sound to objects they are familiar with rather than materials. One playtester mentioned that he was imagining times in his life he had heard sounds like the one we made, so that was why he made specific guesses. Second, when many of them heard the sound of the Pepsi can, they said it was a really large object. We’re not sure whether that’s because of the sound itself or just its loud volume.

On Thursday and Friday, with Alex and Sol gone, Dale and Annie worked on branding for the project so that we can finish the complete branding early next week as well as the second playtest on Friday.

With the branding, we have a few design concepts that we are waiting to discuss once we have a chance to meet as a whole team. Alex, before she left, was able to find the printer that we normally use to contact them to see if we can do a custom print that is not typical of the ETC project half-sheets. You can see some of the first mockups Dale has created below.

For the playtest on Friday, we spent the morning assembling the materials that we gathered Thursday. We created a slingshot and used eraser toppers to shoot a target.

In the first part of the test, the target was stationary and rotated around the room between shots, and in the second half the target moved back and forth across the rooms walls. We had our playtesters practice both of these with the lights on, then repeated with the lights off. After a while we discovered that people’s eyes were adjusting to the light, so we had them close their eyes as well.

With the results of this playtest it seems that people are able to make shots with their eyes closed/with the lights out pretty well. Many seemed to almost have an easier time hitting the moving target with their eyes closed. We may post our detailed results later on.

As a team, we decided in the beginning of the week that it might be too aimless to just come up with experiment after experiment without a motivation or overarching theme. Therefore, we came up with multiple story ideas and wanted to make prototypes that would be necessary to make a complete and relatively high quality experience. However, our advisors suggested that coming up with a story for the semester at this point of our project may be too risky, since we don’t know what’s even possible. Therefore, we will be choosing a very simple theme (for example a ninja training his non-vision senses) just so that we can come up with prototypes in motivated and themed ways. And hopefully, at the half of the semester, we would be able to have a good scope of what we can do well. We believe this will enable us to make a prototype that is polished and complete.

Other things that happened this week: Our project website is initially set up. It’s no longer a pure white webpage with blog posts on it. It’s now a pure black webpage with blog posts on it.

Join us next week for our next two sound-related tests! We will be looking at narration and voice or pitch matching as possible mechanics.