Category: Term 4: Final Major Project

Basic Profile

Gameplay: This is mainly a maze game with hiding and collecting as the main factor. The innovative idea is the using of a touching box as an additional device to invoke the players tactile. In the maze there are less light and even exists pure dark area, which ask the players to touch the terrain in the touching box and figure out the way accordingly.

Scene-building: Linked with storytelling, the whole scene was set as in a lab, in which glass tanks with green gas and crying robots are applied as barriers and ghost-like young women set in turning trasparent pyramids are applied as collectable items. In considering too much contents may cause mixed up while the players touching inside the box, the background scene didn’t enrich with items too much, only necessary items and decorations with certain functions were added into the scene.

Storytelling: as the main purpose of applying storytelling is to provide a background atmosphere for the scene, there is less direct storytelling during the game. Some information was added in secret, such as morse code pretending to be decorations, graffiti that don’t know what they are representing, vague voice-over speaking in 5 different languages, and an unseeable “administrator”, trying to bring a mysterious feeling that there might be something but it’s hard to tell.

Combining with the Framework from the Thesis

1. To limit the amount of controlling keys. A complex controlling system may enrich the possibility of operation, but at the same time, it rises the learning cost. A fair simple way to gain a positive result at least expense is to use mouse clicking as the only possibility of input, which decreases the embarrassment of presenting keyboard keys on the screen.

2. To respect the tradition of controlling keys if there are any, e.g., space always refers to jump, or at least, be thoughtful if it is necessary to create a new controlling system. It is fair that a game as a piece of creative work faces the problem that there are no suitable categories to place it in, as the label of the game always comes after a certain kind of game happens. In this situation, it might be helpful to consider the arrangement tradition of operations in the games that have similar visual structures which is the players’ perspective.

3. To apply some hints at the very beginning of the game, to let the players realise at least if the game is operated by a mouse or by a keyboard.

4. To leave the players some time to explore by themselves after launching into the game, but leave an obvious enough hint, e.g., guiding lighting, to give the players some initial aims. Don’t combine the exploration requirement on the operation and on maps together.

5. According to Everaert-Desmedt (2011), upon being interpreted, the representamen has the ability to trigger an interpretant, which in turn becomes a representamen by triggering another interpretant referring to the same object as the first representamen and thereby allowing the first one to refer to the object. Hence it is crucial for the designers to ensure their signs, during the progress from an object to the signifier, can be interpreted by the players in the similar way they expect. Among the three types of signifiers, icons and indexes are more commonly used, as symbols are too easy to be influenced by cultural differences and thus the same interpretation is less possible to lead to compared with the other two.

6. If it is a game using keyboards with a complex or rarely seen arrangement on operation, it is better to show some obvious connections during onboarding at the earlier stage. Probably for ensuring a proper immersive experience, certain kinds of games do exist, avoiding directly telling the players anything and leaving it for the players to explore totally by themselves with controlling keyboards. As a result, the players sometimes will have to try keys randomly or even seek help on players’ forums if they fail to figure out the right operation keys with their previous experience.

7. As mentioned above, the basic style of the game is also an important referring condition. To be adept at combining onboarding with style by using different onboarding approaches and types of signs, the game will become more harmonious.

My framework in the final thesis

*Explanation*

Icons: showing stuff in a similar way somehow (e.g., a similar shape shows on a road sign for falling rocks)
Indexes: showing stuff with associating (e.g., smoke is a sign of fire)
Symbols: showing stuff by convention (e.g., a 45-degree cross line means “no”)

At the very beginning, the game I planned to make is a classic platform adventure game, which makes using completely no voice-over and no on-screen text possible. But the game that I finally made can be regarded as a totally new category of game. And thus there is less former experience from the players that can be called, especially since there is an additional device with covering that doesn’t let them look inside. The only way to let the players know how to play is either to add some human language for clear guidance. However, my framework is still very helpful in making the whole onboarding experience as smooth, simple and solid as possible. Here’s how I try to apply the whole onboarding in combination with my framework:

1. In the main menu, the guidance only shows up after the players try to press any button or key down to let them clearly know how to start, giving the players some space for exploring by themselves but don’t let them confused for too long a time. As the existence of the touching box is obvious enough, there’s no additional hint to lead the players. (Framework-3, Framework-4)

2. After getting into the playground scene, the player’s character will drop down from the air after another pressing on the button, to provide a visual movement to make the players notice it more. (Framework-5, in combination with my discussion in the thesis “…whereas dynamic visual is not only eye-catching but also easier to be an icon as a sign, as the crucial point for an icon is similarity, thus possibility is provided for simulating an action that the players can do.”)

3. The use of the touching box and the button is described by text to try to make it clear. Also, the usable keyboard keys are shown in text as well, in avoiding the players focusing completely on the touching box and don’t realise they need to use the keyboard. A tradition using of keys is applied according to most role-playing games. (Framework-2, Framework-6)

4. There is no text tutorial on the mission part, but all players can realise what they should do. That was achieved by applying the principles of using “icons”.

5. After collecting the first soul piece, the self-exploring time of the map is given to the players without any disturbance. Image with little light is applied to attract the players to move forward. And an only pathway of getting into the whole map is applied to lead the players to get used to touch and to walk into darkness. (Framework-4)

6. The whole tutorial texts are combined with storytelling finely with proper UI panels, to show a feeling that there’s an administrator texting the players with things like Google glasses to help them launch into the lab, for providing a harmonious experience. (Framework-7)

Processing and Management

For project management, tasks were planned and divided after prototyping and first testing according to their categories to make the multithreaded work clearer.

I didn’t make an everyday timetable, because according to my own habits, I will always try to do something other than the arrangement on the timetable.

Tools Used

Unity – URP: for building the scene and making the digital part of the game.

Blender: for building models and making poses.

Adobe Illustrator: for making UI panels as well as the necessary documents for laser cutting.

Procreate and Adobe Photoshop: for drawing and adjusting 2D graffiti on the glass.

Rode NT1, Roland A-49, FL Studio and Adobe Audition: for making the background sound and the voice-over.

Ultimaker 3, Ultimaker S5, Form 3, Form 3L, Cura and Preform: for 3D printing in different materials and sizes.

Trotec Speedy 360: for laser cutting on acrylic sheets.

Loctite 420 glue, fretsaw, electric drill, screw, sandpaper, etc.: for combining and installing all the components.

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.

Personal aims and objectives

Start with the Gameplay

As a former art history and social sciences student, I was used to showing everything in words and referring to pictures in my past many years. After a year’s work in games, I realised I have also brought these into the flow of games design. Except for widely using on-screen texts or voice-over in game-ongoing, it is usual for me to bring up an initial game idea from a narrative story or a visual scene, but not the logic of gameplay – which should be the core thing for a game. So, in my final major project, I would like to challenge myself and try to understand game design better, by using more designing languages rather than human words during the whole game and making a start with the gameplay.

In addition, I had a fairly weak background in making visual art when I first joined this MA programme last year. During the past terms, I kept collaborating with those who were skilled in art style direction and art resource making. By making this game completely by myself, I would also like to see my progress in visual design for games in the screen part of my game.

A Game Relying on Tactile

By making a game relying mostly on touching, I was trying to explore the possibilities of interaction relying on senses other than visual and auditory, as I believe every sense can be mobilised to be a part of a gaming experience, but, due to hardware limitations, sight and hearing are the undisputed mainstream in most games.

Among the other senses people have, the first one I tried was olfactory, which was once submitted as my proposal for applying for this MA programme before. But when prototyping it, I realised except for technical difficulties, there are two things that prevent olfactory becoming the core gameplay of a game: 1. Olfactory bases on materials and therefore can hardly provide a precise symbolic meaning of specific items or events, e.g., a smell of metal can refer to not only a sword but also a gear. Thus, it will be extremely hard to let the players know how they should react after receiving an olfactory signal. Touching a sharp item can exactly make the players feel dangerous, but a terrible smell may only make them feel disgusting and uncertain. 2. Olfactory relies more on common sense, which, according to my framework of the thesis, is inadvisable unless in a specific game type. Gustatory was briefly considered as well after that, only to find it, first of all, contained too many practical issues, such as allergy and food safety, whereupon tactile sense was finally chosen.

The Idea of “Jugend”

The narrative of the game regards my own experience with a combination with Hegel’s discussion towards people living through their time of youth. According to Hegel and Lukacs, ” ‘The subjectivity of the substantive content of such an ideal implies not only an opposition to the world as it is, but also the urge to do away with this opposition by realizing the ideal. ‘… The transition of the youth from his ideal life into civil society involves a painful process of adaptation punctuated by crises. ‘…In this morbid mood a man Is reluctant to surrender his subjectivity, he is unable to overcome his antipathy for reality and so finds himself in a state of relative impotence which can easily turn into true impotence. Therefore, if a man wishes to survive, he must acknowledge that the world is independent and essentially complete…’ ” … And for me and maybe other people like me, the ideal is various and some even opposite to each other, which may cause an increase of the level of feeling pain. In the game, I would like to embed a story in which a young woman tried to split her soul into several pieces and install them into the bodies of robots so that she can realise all of her ideals separately and doesn’t need to face the real world by herself.

However, the main aim of adding storytelling is for providing a creepy and mysterious atmosphere, but not for the players to explore and fully realise what story is there really happened – or to say, I hope they can’t figure all the storytelling out, as otherwise, the mysterious feeling may disappear.

Critical Reflection

Overall Reflection

The first thing I would like to discuss is, there is an obvious difference in the sensitivities of touching among different players. Some could tell the most detailed differences I made in the touching box, while others may confuse a resin pyramid with a broken acrylic sheet. The difference in bodily forms of different players, which influences the smoothness of putting hands in and moving around, further increases the diversity of situations while the players face the game. It can be concluded that it’s very hard to make a tactile game that perfectly meets all the players’ situations in one single mode, just like a rock-climbing game using VR may not be friendly to very short people. A way for solution may be applied by using as real physical materials as possible (e.g., real glass, real concrete wall) and as close to the real size as possible to reappear the scene in the digital part if this is the case.

In addition, limited by habits, laziness, or hate of the unknown, a few of the players may tend not to put their hand in a touching box and explore by tactile even though they totally received guidance and know what it is for, not to say those who won’t read the tutorial at the beginning. Removing the digital part of the operation and using physical links entirely would solve this issue.

It is impossible for this type of game to be widely used before the sense of touch can be displayed in a fixed machine like a visual display. However, at this stage, this game may provide a little idea for institutions that provide education or entertainment to the visually impaired.

The Developing Process

Due to the long-required time of 3D printing as well as the other physical stuff making, it is difficult to continuously do full playtests and apply rapid adjusting for another playtest in a short time like developing digital games. Although I tried my best to split the whole playtest by applying individual tactile experiments and digital part playtests during the early stage of the developing process, there were still a large number of issues that popped up in the first whole playtest, and made me in a such hurry for adjusting every possible thing during the last few days.

However, I can still feel my project management is better than the former terms. The final version of both the exhibition and the submission version doesn’t have as many bugs as before, and the gameplay process shows in a smoothie way as well.

Reflection on Details

1. After adjusting the shape of the collectable items and adding graffiti on Nov 30th, there was no time left for me to apply another playtesting. Though according to the former playtest, these changes should work, at least won’t turn anything bad, it could be better if a final playtest had been applied.

2. I should have found materials with more obvious differences in tactile for all the content used in the touching box. Not only the degree of roughness but also things like specific heat capacity. In the beginning, a playground board made of laser-grade plywood to simulate the walls and the floor was also considered, which showed a significant difference with PLA in comparison with acrylic sheet, but in worrying about it might hurt the players if there is any splinter, and also, on the other hand, a playground made by wood may not be harmony with the visual part showing on the screen as the latter one contains a sense of technology.

3. About the size of the touching box: the making way of 3D printing limited the size of the whole box. Most of the testers reported they won’t realise the existence of those very detailed items in the box as they were too small. Things might get more flexible if another technology with proper materials was chosen.

4. For the tutorial and onboarding to lead the players to put their hands in the touching box and press the button for locating their position, the final solution chosen was a tip with “hand in” text plus an arrow stuck on the box correspondingly outside the position of the button. However, it might be more clear to change the text “hand in” to “button this way”. A more ingenious solution might be: redesigning the shape of the box, exposing the button outside the box, and linking it with a pathway leading to the inside of it.

5. I heard there is a kind of black paint that can completely avoid the diffuse reflection of light. If the inside of the box is painted with this, the curtain may not be so important.

6. In the digital part of the game, most of the bugs and issues were solved except for the problem with the collider of the following camera. I noticed several times the players were influenced or even confused a bit when they try to walk very close to a horizontal wall near the lower side as they can not see the wall anymore but were still warded off by it. Luckily, it’s not an essential problem and won’t influence the whole process of the game very much. Another thing that might need to fix is the animation control regarding the players’ movement. The players’ character will keep the walking or running animation while moving towards a wall. That influences nothing under lights, but while in total darkness, the players may be misled by that and think the character is still moving. In addition, the camera will shake heavily if the players go upstairs and at the same time press Shift to speed up, which should also be modified.

7. Sometimes the button will spring up crookedly after being pressed as it was only equipped with one spring. The keystroke is fairly long as well which makes the feeling of pressing the button not a hundred per cent silky. If I were to make a similar game in the future, buying some button keycaps especially prepared for self-make installations should be considered to optimize this experience.

8. More sound effects should have been applied for a stronger feedback interaction. In the current final version, the player won’t hear the voice-over anymore after they pick up each soul piece, but negative feedback might call less attention than positive one. A clear and short proper sound may be applied after successfully collecting the items, so do the time after the players win or lose the game.

Unrealised Ideas and Further Possibilities

1. The hardness of the game can be increased by adding a count: the self-role character’s power/electricity. The robot will gradually lose power while walking and collecting items, and the players will lose the game if their power is used up. This can be added to the main menu for the players to choose between. A time counter may also be added to give the players an efficiency score on a rank board in case some players (like me as a player) would like to compare with each other.

2. If more interactable factors can be added into the box and send more signals than one single button can do to realise a more linked experience, such as using a turning steer to open a door, some weak electricity to bring the players some prickling sensation in the dangerous area, or making the digital-part robot say “don’t touch me” while the players really touching them in the touching box, the whole playing experience should be more solid.

The sensitivity of the players towards movement listed in my thesis may also be applied in the aspect of tactile. In that case, something movable like a moving wall continuously following the players in some specific area, narrowing down their living spaces to let them nervous and have to find their way out urgently, may be a good way to bring some excitement. It should be interesting if the robots inside the touching box are moving by themselves as well. All of these can be made with Arduino.

3. Considering it’s still a game on-desk, the size of the touching box was made in the range to be suitable to place on a desk. In this case, even though I realised my original plan on the size (30cmx20cmx20cm), it may still be difficult for the players to recognize the very tiny items like the crying robots. If there’s enough time, budget and tools, and I were making a touching game again, I may like to try making a VR game with a 1:1 touching space and the players will have to put themselves in rather than just a hand.

4. Thinking that this may be more suitable for people with visual impairments than ordinary games, it should be great to improve the sound feedback system in the later stage and have some playtesters proceed with an eye-closed test to see if they can also pass the level. Although my original intention is not to design games specifically for the visually impaired group but to explore the possibility of applying tactile in games design, it is also a gratifying bonus for me if it can provide some gaming interest to people with difficulties.