14/10/2022
The idea of a double-layer puppet box has been raised, in which the players put their hand inside a box, hold a controller, move it through the pathway, and touch the surroundings to recognize things in the box to help find targets and hide from dangers, and at the same time see the puppet moving in the scene on a digital monitor. The lower layer has nothing inside, just to bring a feeling for the players that they are really controlling a puppet there.
Two problems: 1. Technically, it is hard and time-consuming to make the very fine linked location between the digital and physical parts. 2. It may not be easy for the players to control and touch the surroundings at the same time.
After discussion with tutors and colleagues, a new possibility has been brought out: leave only the terrain in the physical box, the player will need to touch inside to find their pathway for moving their digital character on the screen (still with a keyboard or a mouse). It can be made either for one player with two hands or for two players for collaboration.
16-17/10/2022
The placement of the collections takes into account the player’s movement line. The first one is set very near the starting point, with the purpose of providing a tutorial. The second one is placed on the only way to go deep into the maze, letting the players get familiar with the game. The third one is in the middle of nothing but the players can see the little light from it after they get the second one from far. The fourth one and the fifth one are arranged next to a wall so the players can locate them, but both of them are placed in narrow or remote locations with thorns causing bleeding nearby, to provide some difficulties as a higher level.
17/10/2022 – Playtest 1 – Prototype playtesting
With 5 targets in total, for all of the players, the number of targets they finally found respectively are 1, 5, 5, 3, 4, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, which meant half of the players finished the game, and most of the rest could at least find over half of the targets before giving up. This preliminarily demonstrated that the gameplay was effective. Except this, many notable situations and feedback appeared during the first playtesting:
1. Some players mentioned it brought them a scary feeling both when facing the darkness on screen and putting their hands into a box full of unknown stuff. (This might be important when considering the art style of the game later.)
2. Different players reacted differently facing the dark box. Player A put his/her hand far inside the box and touched items with all the fingers in all directions and tried to remember the terrain before starting the game on the screen side. Player B jumped between walls with his/her hand. Player C moved his/her hand along with moving the character by keyboard at the beginning (which met my design aim), but soon stopped moving the hand anymore and enjoyed trying to find the pathway in darkness purely with the keyboard (of course he/she failed). These didn’t bring me too much inspiration on how to improve my game, but it is still helpful to see how the players invoke an uncommonly-used sense differently while playing.
3. It had been hard for me to balance the largeness of the hole from which the players put their hands inside the box. I tried to make it as large as possible with the precondition that the players couldn’t see the content inside. But still, some players reported that the hole was not big enough and as a result, they might not tend to explore several parts that were not easy to reach for them. As a solution, a curtain at the front to cover a more giant hole may be very useful.
4. For the prototype, I would have to hold the players’ hands inside the box and lead them to find the starting point. A suggestion was raised by David that for the final version, a button could be used for starting or resetting the game by the players themselves.
5. The players were trying to locate themselves with distance according to their standing point, the walls and the lights, which means it is better to be equal-proportion simulating in the further version.
6. A player with his/her hand walking against the floor at all times thought the screws were a little gate rather than thorns. The thorns should be made shorter in the further version.
7. Players reported it was hard to realise the one hiding in the lower right angle as the space is too narrow.
8. A player thought the foam clay was the thorns I said. Several others reported the walls and the floor looked the same on-screen but touched with a huge difference in the box. In considering the individual variety in tactile, The differences in materials between items should be enhanced, and at the same time, the connection between the tactile feeling and the visual feeling should be noticed.
9. Players showed more likely to mix up two pathways horizontally parallel (like the letter “E”) rather than vertically parallel (like a lying “E”). (Probably because they have five fingers in a vertical way.) A wall setting horizontally should be made shorter in solving this.
10. The players could hardly find where they were as long as they got lost. A location reset or restart button should be very useful.
11. Plenty of players reported that although it was cool, it might confuse them if they began from a totally dark screen.
12. More players tended not to put their hands far inside the dark box till the bottom but to regard a long thwartwise wall inside as the end of the map. I tried to find the reason, and finally realised it was about the size and shape of the box. If it’s hard for their hands to reach a place, they won’t try to make it but just ignoring subconsciously. Besides, players’ position sitting in front of the desk, their pose, the length of their arms, the size of their hands and fingers, and if they are wearing thick clothes with long sleeves, were all influencing factors of how smoothly they explored the contents inside the box.
21/10/2022
Though telling a story is not my purpose, it is important to determine what kind of theme should be set for the whole game and to strengthen the atmosphere according to the feelings brought to the player by the gameplay. With this thought, after the gameplay was settled, I was stuck for a few days on what background narratives I should make it to. As that would influence how the scene would be like and what the exact each item is and I didn’t know how to go on without these.
This was finally resolved by writing down all the particularities of the game and brainstorming to list all the story settings that meet these particularities that I can rise up with. The scene of Lab was finally chosen as I recalled Xintong’s artwork seen before which can be a very good reference for my visual design, plus it can easily bring some creepy atmosphere which matches Playtest – feedback 1. It was soon combined with some of Hegel’s thoughts which I recently read. From now on the whole design plan has been built.
24/10/2022 – Playtest 2 – Prototype Playtesting
Tried to let the players start from a very dim light rather than pure darkness this time, a new issue was raised after adjustment: some of the players felt confused, and thought what they could control was the light but not the robot, for the reason that before the robot walking out from the pure darkness, the light firstly would change as soon as the players pressing AWSD.
31/10/2022
A little touch experiment was applied, to see if smooth-printed PLA (the material which 3D printing is using) can be a wall or a surface of a water tank and if some fragments of PLA can be some broken glass. Testers were asked to close their eyes and were told it was something inside a lab.
Feedback is as follows:
For the smooth-printed PLA: testers reported cabinet doors, desks, floors, and non-metal-made equipment. While asking if it’s possible to be a water tank, only one said it may be; while asking if it can be a wall, all testers agree it’s possible, and more than one supplemented that the wall (if it is) brought up a sense of technology.
For the fragments of PLA: testers reported electronic components and broken wooden stuff or thorns. While asking if it can be some broken glass, non of them agree, as there wasn’t a cold feel and the arrangement was too regular, for the reason that the height difference between the different fragments was too small. The good thing was all of the testers could tell it was dangerous and at the same time, it won’t really hurt them.
As a response to the feedback, acrylic sheets were finally chosen to be added as a new material into the touching box, with laser cutting to adjust the sizes and shapes. For the fragments part, either trying acrylic or changing the setting from broken glass to thorns is a possible solution.
03/11/2022
The UI system was initially settled up, detailed visual design is still to be made. The structure of the UI system was planned according to the needs of feedback: 1. guiding and onboarding, 2. reminding the players to pick up the collectable items, and showing if the items are picked up, 3. reminding the players to get rid of dangers, and showing how many health they have, 4. both endings (winning and failing), 5. general operations (e.g. going back to the main menu, quitting).
05/11/2022
The position of puppets and gas tanks was planned according to the position of the collectable items as well as the area that is easiest to be seen for the players with a fixed camera angle. Besides, a piece of voice-over using five different languages was recorded with my own voice. “η ψυχή μου (my soul)… 其中一份 (one of them)… 今此処にある (is inside this now)… mein Ideal (my ideal)… is too much.” Although the content regards storytelling, the main aim of applying this is to help build the atmosphere, and the players are not expected to learn anything from it. As a result, it was adjusted to sound ethereal and vague. The volume is made varies depending on the distance between the players and the souls as well. The background sound also made for enhancing the atmosphere was finished in FL Studio.
08/11/2022
Tried several different shapes of the touching box and the final version was decided upon considering the records of the testers’ position and pose putting their hands in, as well as their moving trail and barriers inside the box.
The Advantages are as below: 1. A hole as large as possible at the lateral range guarantees the players’ space for moving; 2. A hole closing to the top rather than to the desk as well as a slope design makes the players put their hands inside the box more comfortably and thus lets them access all the contents easier; 3. the downward slope, as well as a curtain to be composed later, ensured the sight of the players is prevented, also a curtain placed inside the box should bring less possibility for some players to manually remove the shelter and see the content.
11/11/2022
Simplified the structure of the touching box and decreased the size of the box according to the estimated printing time provided by Cura. The box was divided into several pieces as well for making sure they are under the time duration limits from the 3D workshop.
Thought about making two levels with two touching boxes, but it will take a lot of time for 3D printing and the 3D workshop in the uni is often fully booked. This tempting idea was finally given up with keeping one of the ideas of the second level’s plan, which is a half-two-layer loft. This is also to better remind players of their exact position.
12/11/2022
The female model’s face was sculptured and adjusted for making it looks more Asian, as I myself am an Asian woman and part of this game is from my own experience. I hope this character in the story can look like me a bit.
For making the players realise the relationship between the robots in the gas tanks and the soul pieces in the pyramid, several robots and souls are divided into pairs with the same pose between each pair.
14/11/2022
A sample was printed and cut to see how to install acrylic sheets. The outside board of the box was printed as well. A small experiment was applied to see if the players can smoothly put their hands in, feedbacks are as below:
People have a wide variety of sizes of hands, but the smallest hand can access the end of the box without too much struggling (if they are not wearing thick sleeves or decorations), and the biggest hand may sometimes touch the top of the box with their back of hands, but not essentially influencing the gameplay. There’s a huge improvement in comparison with the box in prototyping time. If there’s more time left, a box with a higher top might be better and this one can be changed.
Due to the limitations of existing 3D printing equipment, it’s difficult for the box to be larger, otherwise, it may be better to enlarge the size to 30cmx20cmx20cm.
Got suggestions: 1. It may be good to consider cutting the further-installed curtain into strips for helping the players get better access. 2. In order to keep the box steady, it may be needed for the contents like acrylic sheets to be embedded in the bottom plate, which needs to be confirmed by professionals.
15/11/2022
1. As neither starting from total darkness nor starting from limb light can remove the possibility of confusion according to playtests 1 and 2, a new way has been tried by adding light but plus a very thick fog, and letting the players explore in the fog rather than in darkness. Will see if it’s effective in furthering players’ feedback.
2. Several forms were considered to prompt the player to control the object as a self-character at the beginning, including letting the character stand on a digital button and making the surroundings light up at the very beginning. This was finally settled according to my framework in thesis by the rule of “dynamic visual is not only eye-catching but also easier to be an icon as a sign to make the players realise this item is actable”. The beginning way was set as: when the players pressed down the button in the box, the player’s character jumped from the air onto the playground.
3. Considering the players during prototype playtest time tending to judge their position with the sight of the collectable items but sometimes mix different items up, I tried to sculpt some numbers on the collectable items only to find it didn’t look obvious enough nor a good visual effect. This was changed to an addition of some other reference like a puppet exposing outside.
18/11/2022
1. The model of the puppet was repaired in Netfabb for 3D printing.
2. To make the players realise the difference between materials and notice the collectable items more, for the 6 pyramids, the material of elastic resin was tried with the machine Form 3L 3D Printer rather than the usual used Ultimaker 3 or Ultimaker S5. In addition, to prevent the players from thinking the top end of the pyramid is dangerous, I tried to change the pyramid’s models from sharp corners to rounded corners. It was imported into the game before printing to see if there was a huge difference.
3. In order to solve the steady issue mentioned on 14/11, it was confirmed it was not necessary to make a groove on the bottom plate to embed every single broken glass, and strong glue would be steady enough.
4. Realized that it may be necessary to make some adjustments to the scene in the game based on the 3D-printed product. For example, after printing, some extra lines (as shown in the picture) may affect the player’s judgment, this may can be made in the digital part as some electric wire.
5. The first version of the shell with the inside playboard has been printed out. After checking, I realised due to some mistake in dividing out the model from Blender to Cura, the real thing is slightly higher than the model. In addition, the button was found to be too small than I imagined. A second version of the playboard and the button has been delivered for printing.
19/11/2022
1. When setting the starting operation, I encountered a conflict between the old and new input systems of Unity. After checking, both input systems were enabled at the same time.
2. The appearance of the UI system was initially designed with consideration of the style of cyberpunk.
3. The input detection for controlling the UI system and collecting objects was changed from GetKeyDown to GetKeyUp to give the players time to react and expect, reducing the feeling of items disappearing so fast.
21/11/2022
The acrylic sheets used as the glass of the toxic gas tank were pasted, and it was found that due to measurement, calculating and printing errors, the acrylic sheet was slightly higher than the 3D printed model. And it was difficult to redo it with my tight schedule. A small touch test was conducted and the player was asked if there was any awkwardness. Luckily, the answer was negative and it seems I don’t need to make any changes.
21/11/2022 – Playtest 3 – Digital Part Playtesting
1. A playtest with just the digital part was delivered on the fog version mentioned on 11/15 – 1, only to find the player can achieve all the targets without a touching box. This version of the game has been given up, but I realised it can be a good menu background with its good visual effects.
2. Adjusted the appearing position or logic of some UIs according to the player’s game progress, and auxiliary judgments were added to avoid UI overlap problems caused by unplanned operations by the players.
3. During the test, it was found that the camera position may be affected when the player moves in touching the wall, causing the camera to shake and other issues.
23/11/2022
According to the needs of covering the interior, not easy to be pushed away, and having a feeling that mixes the box’s appearance, a slightly thicker black matte fabric was purchased in the fabric store. The lower part was once planned to be cut after assembly so that the player’s hand can be free to move. It was soon abandoned as it did not look good.
24/11/2022
1. Different parts were installed together. Considering laser cut is not able to make a sharp top end, some “broken glass” is polished on 80-grit sandpaper to create the irregularity mentioned by the tester during the touch test.
2. The shader was adjusted, and the issue that there might be a shadow appearing behind the character’s head while passing the gas tanks was dismissed (though I don’t know why it is and why my adjustment works).
25/11/2022 – Playtest 4 – Whole Game Playtesting
1. In responding to 18/11/2022 – 4 regarding the extra printing lines exposed outside, none of the players realised they existed. No need to adjust.
2. Some players won’t follow the tutorial and directly began to try walking with WASD and jumping with Space, which won’t call the tutorial dismissing code and will keep the tutorial panel existing during the whole playing time.
3. It was still not clear enough what the touching box is doing for the players unless telling them directly it was exactly the physical terrain of the map in the digital part of the game. Players reported they were thinking there were some interactable items inside the box, and “while learning that it was a map, many things suddenly became clear”.
4. Some players thought there was more than one button in the box and begin to find the other ones after the tutorial.
5. Most of the players jumped and jumped during the whole gameplay, and may get stuck inside some colliders of the broken glass.
6. Although most of the players feel interested in the concept of calling tactile and begin to try after acknowledging it, there did exist players who didn’t feel easy to put their hands inside the box. Some of them used to putting their hands on the keyboard even if they knew there was terrain inside the box.
7. Most of the players didn’t realise the position they pressed the button was exactly the position their character started at.
8. One of the players thought the gas tanks were screens and there were only these screens existed and didn’t realise there were walls in the darkness in the digital part, feeling confused why there were barriers inside the touching box. A few lights showing the existence of the walls should be useful.
9. A lot of players would not like to walk into total darkness and only walked around the areas that have images.
10. A lot of players got stuck by the raised wall by the sides of the gas tanks.
11. Nearly 2/3 of the whole players reported though it’s possible to be distinguished after a careful touch, it was still easy to mix up the pyramid collectable items with the dangerous broken glass as both of them had a top end.
12. A number of players reported they didn’t feel a significant difference between acrylic sheets and 3D-printed walls unless they touch them with finger pulps, but the fact was most of them were using their fingertips while exploring.
13. The terrain in the box was thin, but in the digital part, the players would have to look up to see something, which might bring a sense of incongruity.
14. Several players with bigger hands might feel difficult to touch the area under the stairs.
15. During the playtest two versions were applied, one with an outline glowing effect on the players’ character and one without. After observing, the one with that effect was kept for the later version, as the players performed less likely to walk into darkness without a glowing shader showing their current position which might cause stuck in the game process.
26/11/2022
1. Vector Graphics was used to allow .ai layers to be imported into Unity.
2. The pop-up of some UI panels has been given a 0.5s delay to give players room to react so that it will not be too sudden.
3. In considering of more than half of the players didn’t realise the existence of the upstairs area, several pieces of broken glass as well as the red light and bleeding collider were added to the included angle of the wall and stairs to notice the players that there is something in the air.
4. In order to solve all the tutorial issues found in playtesting, the tutorial panels were adjusted. A clear description showing “this model box restored the scene of the lab. You can use it as a map and touch inside for wayfinding” was added, and ” always press the button to restart” was mentioned. According to my thesis “moving items calling more attention”, in making the players less possible to miss the tutorial, the tutorial was set as: showing pressing-button at first, changing to WASD/Shift guide after pressing the button, and after the players pressing any key among WASD/Shift, the touching box guidance will show up in replacing the former one.
5. An indicator showing “hand in” was engraved and stuck on the outside board of the box.
28/11/2022 – Playtest 5 – Whole Game Playtesting
1. In a similar situation to playtest 4, there were nearly 1/3 of the players mentioned that it might not be clear enough between acrylic sheets and PLA walls, and between pyramid items and broken glass.
2. The new version of the tutorial made sense. But there were still a few players not used to putting their hands inside the touching box even if they know what it did, and only begin to explore inside after a strong notice from me.
3. During different rounds of playtesting (including this round), players often couldn’t make a clear distinction between different collectable items as long as they lost themselves on the map. Most of them would soon begin to ask if the item they were touching was exactly the item they were facing in the digital part.
29-30/11/2022
1. According to the feedback from the players among the former two playtesting, the collectable items in the touching box were urgently changed from pyramids with rounded angles to cylinders. Addition containers placed outside the original pyramids in the digital part were also added corresponding to the touching part.
2. In considering solving Playtest 4 – 8, 4 – 12, plus Playtest 5 – 1, 5 – 3, graffiti was applied to both tanks glass and cylinders and both the touching box and the digital part, to bring some additional help for the players to locate themselves and offer some background storytellings. (picture: in-game and physical material)
3. Fined the position of the red lights, broken glass models and the collider with bleeding script in the fractured glass areas, making them fit each other better.
4. A long text showing in the form of a letter was added in enhancing the feedback for winning the game as well as providing some storytelling after the players accomplish the game. Several adjustments were made to make sure the players can’t operate anything anymore during the 2.5s showing “mission failed” or “mission accomplished”, including pressing ESC.
5. Before, the starting button was realised by disabling a cube collider under the players’ self-role character, and the players may drop to the playground without pressing the button if they walk around on the collider. After noticing the performance of the players described in Playtest 4 -2, The collider was upgraded from a cube to a space enfolding the self-role character thoroughly. The players won’t be able to play the game until they do press the button to launch.
6. All the colliders were adjusted finely and both the jump height of the character and the height of the terrain were adjusted downwards.
— Written after submission —
02/12/2022
In observing the players playing my game with totally no guidance from me the designer on the exhibition, several new statuses were recorded:
1. I’ve never thought there might be people who can not make it to use WASD+Space+Shift+F with only one hand, but during only my 4 hours of on-site time, I noticed 2 players putting both their left hand and right hand on the keyboard. In that case, they can never use the touching box and play the digital part at the same time. That made me realise while developing a game, it should be useful to also invite some playtesters who are not familiar with playing digital games as they won’t have “common sense (that in my framework)” in playing games.
2. For a normal version of my game, it should be ok to not show the tutorial while restarting as long as they don’t go back to the main menu. But for the exhibition version, there should be a tutorial after any time a new beginning as things happened that players clicked the restart button and invited the next player to play, which caused them to miss the tutorial.
3. Players reported it felt smooth while playing, and it’s marvellous to have such a new experience. Though there were players who prefer not to use the touching box or miss the guidance and got stuck, I also found some players came to the place and accomplished my game totally in the way I designed. All of these made me gratified.