Week 4: Discussions

Monday 21st - Friday 25th February 2022

WEEK 4 - PLAN FOR DISCUSSIONS

This week, Kiera and I have organised a discussion with Adam and Sid. These are our routine progress updates and check-ups. We are hoping to gather advice/suggestions from different people which'll help us progress with the project.

(These discussions can also be found on my Notion)

WEEK 4 - DISCUSSION WITH SID

Monday 21st February

PURPOSE FOR DISCUSSION

Introduce Sid to our project, project updates/check-up. Gather feedback and suggestions.

NOTES:

Expressed our concern for working in a 360-degree space. Spoke about limitations, technical and hardware issues. (Projectors, walls, interactions across all 4 walls etc).
Agreed painful working in a 360 space!
Sid suggests choosing VR - Players still get the 360 effect.
Built it on a VR headset (as we are doing so), focus on this for right now.
Make on a VR headset first and project later on - ensures we have a working game.
Make more achievable decisions - incase we can't get it working on projectors.
Experience game back home on VR, come to the show and experience the full experience.
Be safe, don't get carried away, avoid failure.
2D will be harder than 3D - up to us!
Possible to work in a global camera (3D environment) and implement in 2D assets manually.

CONCLUSION

NEXT STEPS

Continue working on VR prototype, because if the ideas for the box fails we still have something that is playable for the Arcade Event!
Think about what will make development easier for us - don't get carried away!
Evaluate feasibility of box.
Begin to experiment with visuals more - carry out testing!

EVALUATION & REFLECTION OF DISCUSSION

WHAT WENT WELL?

Sid loved our idea and was excited to hear about it, and see the final outcome. He expressed his enthusiasm towards the project and how it's something very different to what he's used to! Sid gave us suggestions to make development easier, one of which involved continuing with our VR prototype to ensure we had a playable product at the end of the year. As well as this, he said he believes our project is more than doable especially if we both work hard and focus to get things done. We also came up with a solution to be able to make our game in 2D which requires a global camera, and Sid said this can be done too. (The traditional way)

WHAT DIDN'T GO WELL?

Sid thought we were being a little overly ambitious with the box idea in terms of its technicalities and getting everything set up the way we want it to. This made us rethink our idea of our own box construction (which we had already been doubtful about in the past), and therefore, encouraged us to begin with a Virtual Reality game to achieve the same experience, and progress from here once we have everything set in stone. His main concern was working on a project that requires more time than just 12 weeks, so suggested we cut things down and make it easier for the both of us.

NEXT STEPS/CHANGES WE HAVE TO MAKE THIS WEEK:

This week we must continue working on our gameplay experience and speak with Adam about our latest gameplay idea, to ensure we are on the right track. We also feel as though we need to fill Adam in with these new decisions as we are facing more problems than anticipated! This conversation with Sid helped us come to the conclusion that the box idea is too far fetched. In terms of what hardware/software is required to make it work, we don't have near enough time to make this happen. This is ok, because we can spend the next week brainstorming ways to overcome this issue.

TRELLO - UPDATED TO DO LIST

https://trello.com/invite/b/XQyFGSIT/821d9c2572f15025b306d2268f14624a/getaway-project-management

WEEK 2 - DISCUSSION WITH ADAM

Friday 25th February

PURPOSE FOR DISCUSSION

Update Adam with design process, problems we've faced, ways to overcome them, general check-up.

PLAN FOR DISCUSSION

1. Outline the new idea - art style, what will happen, how players will interact.

2. Gameplay - go into gameplay in depth. Influence over music etc. Collect music notes.

3. Problems - Unity, 4 projectors issue, using 1 global camera. Sid suggested working in Virtual Reality first. Hardware issues - lost a lot of time because of this.

NOTES:

Outlined gameplay idea - use of hand drawn illustrated environment consisting of little animations. Players control bird in the environment to collect notes, gives players agency in the environment and observe their surroundings - link back to regulation.
Adam enjoys the sound of the idea, "generally sounds interesting". Enjoys the sound of the art style.
"Get out locations" - make composite of multiple locations, get a few real locations. Different things going on around the environment. (For environment/art style)
Picking things up - like the idea. Collect other things e.g. clouds instead of music notes.
Suggested painting physically in the box as well as just the projections.
Neutral painting in the box and overlay different things.
PROBLEMS - outlined the problems with the idea. Need Unity Pro - costs thousands. Suggested creating a 3D environment with 1 global camera. Also suggested image processing with 2D.
Adam suggested using 2D planes in a 3D space - this would work fine.
Run 4 copies of Unity - although wouldn't work with one input.
Projectors put against wall - short throw (unsure how many we'd need)
ART STYLE - speak with Megan Matthews - watercolour and scanned in assets, send message and say interested in this technique and 2D in a a 3D space (as she did this for her project). Discuss process with her.
Message Alexander Perrin!
Wayfinder - Canada art style for inspiration.
Vector Art Style - not so great. "meh".
Think what do we want?
Test graphite marks on same material, texture of material would be nice.
SET UP - look at short throw projectors - arrange the space according to technicalities.
Gaps in the space - embrace them.
Figuring out what projectors do - fiddle around and test ASAP incase we need to buy.
Consider everything - think of different approaches.
Clips of construction in film.
Keep testing things, have a good selection of ideas.

CONCLUSION

NEXT STEPS

Focus on refining gameplay experience, focus on design of this. Adam liked the idea of simple gameplay, and found the concept generally interesting.
In terms of art style/environment - start testing with this, using different materials, show experimentation. Contact Megan Matthew and Alexander Perrin for tips!
Physical Space - test with projectors in a space. Work out how many we would need.
Development - suggested working with 2D planes in a 3D space could work. It's just about testing this.
"Embrace" gaps in the space, work around the imperfections in the environment - we can make it work!
To summarise, focus on refining the gameplay experience and testing different setups for the space. Experiment with short throw projectors and think of different approaches.
Spend time finding solutions for things - everything is possible.

EVALUATION & REFLECTION OF DISCUSSION

WHAT WENT WELL?

This discussion gave me the confidence in knowing we are going down the right path. Adam agreed that our idea is interesting and thinks we could work around the limitations by thinking of different approaches. - All of which are achievable. He gave us some great suggestions for environment/location and gathering inspiration for art style such as talking with Megan Matthews to understand her process, as it's very similar to ours. I feel reassured knowing we are on the right track but just need to spend a little more time problem-solving and trying things out to do so.

NEXT STEPS/CHANGES WE HAVE TO MAKE THIS WEEK:

As we have many options to think through, we must come to a conclusion based on what exactly we will be using to build the game. This depends on if we choose 'Webcam/Image processing' as our input method or touch controllers as our initial idea. We have been assured that it is possible to work with 2D planes in a 3D environment which can then be linked to a global camera, therefore, resulting in an interactive 360-degree space - it's just up to us to evaluate which of our options will be most feasible given our short-time period. We will come to a conclusion on this after our next meeting with James as he plans to demonstrate webcam processing to us live! For now, we can do the necessary research into our art style and get in contact with people to help us with this. Knowing this information, I can begin to create the Art Bible which will help us with asset creation and development (WEEK 5). As we have been given the thumbs up for gameplay, I plan to finish this week with a few gameplay mockups in the form of simple illustrations and prototypes. Kiera has spent the majority of this week testing player interaction using her Virtual Reality prototype which demonstrates the use of touch controllers to control an object through a space. I will also be updating the Trello with our weekly tasks/to do list.

TRELLO - UPDATED TO DO LIST

https://trello.com/invite/b/XQyFGSIT/821d9c2572f15025b306d2268f14624a/getaway-project-management