For our midterm critique with Justin and Roz, I found one major element of feedback and therefore takeaway to affect our remaining time of development. This focused on the introduction of our narrative to the player. Because we are still building a tutorial / introductory phase of the gameplay, in which the player is formally asserted to be the alien character, the narrative is fairly muddled and only conveyed through interaction with specific objects and thematically stylized furniture, etc. And since we have decided not to push further with any new mechanics or major game elements, we can really narrow our work down to making sure our story is properly communicated to the player.
In particular, this introduction needs to occur quickly and at the start of the game experience. One of the things mentioned by Roz during our critique included the consideration of the length of the experience. As this is going to be shown in a gallery space, a full VR escape scenario is excessive in her opinion, and the audience should be given a concise demo of about 5 minutes – which is around the length of their attention span, in her opinion. However, Justin later disagreed with her, and expressed that we already have a full length (targeted around 30 minutes) game, as it is entirely playable for this period of time. His opinion was to not discourage us from crafting a game instead of a gallery experience, as we still want to have a game product at the end of our year as our takeaway from thesis. He continued, however, to stress the importance of introducing the player to the context of the game. With these two critiques, I felt it was clear advice that going forward in our 6 weeks, we focus from the start of the game and move inward, being sure to craft a polished initial 5-10 minutes, and being less focused on the ending scenario of the game – perhaps to the point of not spending much if any time on this end of the game. This ensures that we not waste time on a polished ending sequence that is likely not to be experienced by anyone in the gallery space, while at the same time allowing it to exist as a fully usable escape scenario, should anyone choose to complete it, or for promotional material we need, etc.
With this in mind, our production timeline is not severely altered so much as refocused on those first minutes of play. The starting screen, which we already have but requires either a text or voiceover tutorial and adjusted graphics, will become our priority in development. Next is the continued polish of objects in the room, which was an essential part of immersion and narrative comprehension, while at the same time adding to the enjoyment of the puzzles, which are all object based. We have a few bugs or other elements which require a short amount of attention. And lastly we will attempt to make a small change to the alien model and it’s appearance in the game, including the hand models and blood, etc.
Updated Production Timeline:
Week 1 – March 19-25
– Add text introduction tutorial to starting screen (voice can be replaced later)
– Add text and sound effects for death and restart scenarios
– Work on custom objects for puzzles
– Add brief cinematic of UFO crashing
– Replace fonts and insert new icons (already in project)
Week 2 – March 26-Apri 1
– Confirm and test provided equipment for gallery (PC, monitor, Oculus)
– Add sound effects to every object; pick up, drop, throw
– Continue work on custom objects
– Work on alien model
– Replace alien hands
Week 3 – April 2-8
– Continue work on custom objects
– Plug in and finalize custom objects within puzzles
– Adjust ending area as needed to match intro
Week 4 – April 9-15
– Finalizing scene lighting
– Reimport music and final audio files
– Polish on any objects or room elements as needed
Week 5 – April 16-22
– Testing and demoing with friends/classmates
– Cutting video, trailers, screenshots from demoing
– Equipment testing and procurement
– Posters for show
– And last minute necessary fixes
