Design & Development
Easter:
Games Day!
Wednesday 30th -Thursday 31st March 2022
EASTER WEEK 1 -
TO DO: PACKING UP & BARCLAYS EAGLE LABS GAMES DAY!​
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WHAT WILL WE BE DOING?
Today Kiera and I will be getting ourselves and the equipment ready for tomorrow's Games Day! We have double checked everything works as expected and now must make sure we have all of the equipment we need ready for set up. On this page I will also be documenting the outcome of the day, including feedback we gathered and an evaluation of the overall event.
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GOALS FOR THE DAY​
Create an equipment check-list for tomorrow, gather everything we need for set-up and pack the van. It is my responsibility to gather all presentations for student showcase. (My responsibility to play presentations at the event)
PLAN (can also be found on my Notion)
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Create equipment list - what do we need tomorrow?
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Gather equipment - put in box, ready to pack in the van.
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Gather team presentations for student showcase, keep saved in folder on desktop.
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Document outcome of the day.
TASK 1
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WHAT DO WE NEED TO PACK?
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CHECK LIST:
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Panel
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Projector
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HDMI Cable
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HDMI - USBC Adapter
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Laptops x2
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Laptop Chargers
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USB
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Hard Drive
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Extension lead
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Presentation
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Script
TASK 2
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GATHER EQUIPMENT AND PACK VAN (DONE)
TASK 3
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GATHER PRESENTATIONS AND SEND TO ADAM PROCTER (DONE)
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We have everything prepared for Barclays Eagle Labs Games Day which I plan to document on the weekend!
TASK 4 - 2nd April
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BARCLAYS EAGLE LABS GAMES DAY!
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On Thursday 31st March we attended Barclays Games Day, showcased our year groups games and Kiera and I presented to an audience! It was an amazing opportunity and was amazing to gather feedback from people and talk to people regarding the future of our project. We were able to talk to industry experts, college students and Barclays employees about our idea and many were impressed by what we had achieved so far.
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Today, I am going to be documenting the outcome of the day alongside clips and feedback from testers.
​BARCLAYS EAGLE LABS GAMES DAY @ ST MARY'S STADIUM
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GALLERY
The class' game setups
Getaway!
Kiera and I celebrating after our presentation.
PLAYTESTS
WHAT DID WE DO?
We setup our game the way we did yesterday, with the laptop setup beside the screen on a high table. This allowed players to interact through webcam and see the outcome projected in front of them too. I also connected the laptop to a Bluetooth speaker, allowing us to play the music out loud. We attracted a number of people over and spoke to lots of people about the idea, some of which tested the game and provided feedback too.
Here are two playtests I was able to record which demonstrates how players will use the webcam interaction to guide the bird on screen. As the 'left wrist' interaction did not work, for the sake of this playtest, players were using their noses. We informed them it should be their palms, which the all agreed would be much more effective.
FEEDBACK & COMMENTS
THE IDEA
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Very impressed with the general idea
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Thinks it can be developed even further in the future
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Love the idea
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Love the use of a screen
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Appreciate what it stands for and thinks it will help a lot of people
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Cleverly done
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Great idea focusing on benefitting mental health
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GAMEPLAY
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Subtle but effective
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Impressed by the use of gesture control
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Most people automatically went to interact with their palm, as if they knew beforehand. This proves the game is intuitive and not misleading.
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Most commented on the use of the palm - would much prefer this, requires less effort and would enjoy it more.
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VISUALS/SOUND
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Beautiful environment design
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Love the style of the mountains
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Peaceful
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Calming and relaxing
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Love the choice for hand-drawing
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Love the idea of influence over music
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Love the inspiration from music psychology, think this is cool and hasn't been done very often.
REFLECTION & EVALUATION OF TESTS​
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The day was a great opportunity to gather feedback from people of all ages, with different perspectives and from different creative backgrounds. We gathered some great comments regarding our game idea and most people seemed to be impressed by what we had achieved so far! It was motivating to talk to so many new people and I am happy I was able to attend, not to mention the opportunity to present too!
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THE IDEA
The comments gathered from playtesting were mostly positive and lots of people loved what we stood for and expressed their appreciation for the idea. We spoke to a few people about the impact it should have on people and they were grateful, knowing family members and colleagues suffer with the same. A lot of people discussed our future plans for the idea, and spoke about how we might develop it further after university as we said this is something we'd love to do. It was great to speak to people about this and gather advice for what we could do, one being taking the idea further with Eagle Labs.
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GAMEPLAY
As for gameplay, a lot of testers were impressed by the use of gesture control as it's something they are not used to and loved to take part. We explained the use of gesture using your palm rather than face detection, which most agreed would be much better and preferred. Approaching the setup, most people went to automatically interact with their hands too, which proves its intuitive and that's the gesture that felt most natural in the space. This is great, as we don't want to force gameplay or encourage players to do anything they don't want to do in that moment. We had a few comments on how it was relaxing, calming and overall just an enjoyable, pleasing experience.
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VISUAL DESIGN/SOUND
People passing commented on the "beautifully drawn" scenery and loved our art style very much. People questioned our choice but said how intricately drawn it was and impressed by our skills! It was really nice to hear this from people and it gave me confidence in my own abilities. People also liked the idea of having influence over the sound, and said they loved how we incorporated the use of music/sound psychology into gameplay itself.
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Overall, we gathered some amazing results from the day and are pleased we were able to present, as this was a major step in both of our university experiences, and potentially careers.
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PRESENTATION & NETWORKING
WHAT DID WE DO?
Kiera and I presented Getaway to an audience and answered a handful of questions from the audience after. Everyone seemed very interested and impressed by our idea, which motivated me even more to get it up and running. I was nervous at first but loved every second of it and surprisingly, it felt very natural! After the presentations was the networking event, where we were able to talk to guests and industry experts. A number of people approached Kiera and I and discussed the future of our project which was really exciting to talk about and gave me the confidence knowing our idea can be taken further after graduating.
Mid Presentation!
NOTES FROM NETWORKING
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Consider setting up a podcast and tiktok page for development
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Post on tiktok regularly to update development progress, film 1 minute clips of process
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Podcast - discuss the life of a student, developer, issues we faced etc.
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Grow our audience on social media
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Post everyday, be consistent!
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Riversidefm - Podcast Software
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Veed.io
END OF THE DAY REFLECTION​
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To summarise, the day was an incredible opportunity to network and showcase our ideas and I am grateful we were able to attend. We gathered some great results from testing and have taken all comments on board to make further improvements. It's just a case of us programming the intended body part, finalising assets and setup, and we should be good to go.
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NEXT STEPS
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We are scheduled to begin Asset Creation next week which I plan to briefly document as I go, as I'd like to spend more time creating and less documenting the process, to not set myself back. However, I will be testing the assets as we make them to evaluate their outcome against expectations in the environment, and provide feedback to make necessary changes.
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