Week 8: 2/29/16 – 3/4/16

Week 8 was the week of Phantasm’s first playtest. We conducted our playtest here at the Entertainment Technology Center, and tested our experience with 16 ETC students and faculty. For our playtest, we implemented the hand interface for the guest, and had untextured character models sitting on the floor of the environment for the guest to interact with and pick up. Upon interacting with the characters, the experience goes into its climax and guests have their interactions turned on them and they end up getting picked up themselves. When done with the experience, playtesters could then fill out a survey.

We got a lot of positive feedback about the ambient sound effects, with playtesters reporting a lot of improved immersion from it. A number of playtesters found parts of the hand interface confusing, not sure what effect they were having on the environment and characters around them, and if they were successfully doing what they intended.

Reactions to the climax of the experience ranged from vague surprise to extreme shock, but unanimously, not a single person reported experiencing nausea when getting picked up, though a few felt a little disoriented. We had a lot of people trying to continue to interact the same way they had been doing during the beginning of the experience, and many wanted the climax to be more drawn out and less sudden, but overall, our playtesters reported positive reactions to the experience!

Next week:

After Week 8, the ETC’s spring break occurs, and in week 9, the 2016 Game Developer’s Conference takes place, with half the team attending. Thus, our next main work week will be week 10, which is the week of our halves presentation. Our client at Legendary, Matt Geiser, will be visiting to watch our presentation and take a look at our demo to see our progress and the shape of the final project.