Project Newsletter 7 (10/13 – 10/17)
 
Week Overview
This week the team focused our efforts on analyzing the data and observations we gained from our playtest, extracting action items informed by the results, and making revisions based on the feedback.
 
Production
Alongside coordinating with the faculty advisors and external contacts, this week James worked with Christian to go through the playtest surveys and dig into the data for meaningful takeaways.  Towards the end of the week, he also assisted in updating placeholder UI and made a stand in 3D model for an arctic research station that the team decided to add to the experience.  As our half-semester presentation is coming up next week, James also spent some time creating the initial slides for the presentation, which we were able to go over with the faculty this week.
 
Design
For design this week, Christian spent the beginning of the week going through playtest results, sorting the information into a spreadsheet, and looking for meaningful takeaways from the data.  As the team shifted back into production and implementing revisions based on the playtest, he organized specific areas that could be adjusted related to caribou mission. He then helped program and modify the clue objects feedback to use GUI.
 
Art
For art this week, Eric worked to create an initial version of the polar bear model, which he hopes to finalize early next week.  Shashank completed the rigging for the arctic wolf and lemming, and began creating animations for the the two models.
 
Programming
This week Levi dedicated his time to developing the means to sort through the in game data that was logged via JSON objects during the playtest.  He plans to finish code that will reshape the data as a graph by Monday.  Ken worked on implementing a in-game map to address our observation that a number of players felt lost or disoriented in the game world.  He also added the light tracking system we had planned (a system whose need was also reinforced by feedback in the playtest), so that once players ‘tracked’ an animal, its movements in the game world could be seen via the in-game map.
 
Next Week
Next Wednesday we have our half-semester presentation, so we plan on spending time at the beginning of the week preparing and creating a presentation that accurately shows the work we have done so far , and the prototype which we are proud to have made.  Outside of the presentation ,we will be working to complete all the revisions we have planned and introduce new content (e.g. animals in the world, revised UI).