Week 8: Digital MVP, Weekend Playtest prep

Following halves and our encouraging conversations with experts Mike and Ananya, the team set its sights on a playtest centered on “putting a whole experience together for guests.” In some ways, the most useful outcome from the playtest would be the build put together by the end of it. Feedback from the playtesters might not even be too helpful/surprising, since we’ll likely identify gaps in the experience and build just by watching it being played. As Dave mentioned during BVW, “a deadline is a gift.” 

In broad strokes, players assume the role of interns for either the Department of Defense or the Interior. They provide roleplaying details about themselves and their career at their respective department prior to the game using the web build. This information would then be visible to actors/moderators playing the role of the players’ boss at the department. Players are then tasked with finding “evidence” for their boss to present to Congress in a Model-UN style testimony. Finally, players can submit proposals for how money should be allocated as a result of the testimonies they’ve heard. 

 On the Programming front, this equated to turning our bare-bones form submission MVP into a platform where players can contribute to the story (with their roleplaying notes), engage with the existing story (through viewing the artifacts), and then altering the outcome (by voting and shifting budgets at the end). Programming added placeholder 3D scenes where players can interact with 3D artifacts/models. This included placeholder UI elements (as seen in the gameplay video). Depending on the feedback from playtesters, art could move forward with textures/UI look and feel as appropriate. 

Design made several decisions regarding player roleplaying, on-screen text, text/story delivered by objects in the office, as well as the content of performances by department Bosses. It was decided that a minimum version of the experience required at least two roles. Interior and Defense were chosen since Interior roughly mapped onto our existing content (i.e. Downwinders, health impacts, and native american relations). Defense was chosen since the international relations/US hard power perspective was noted to be missing in our halves. It also posed the greatest challenge to the team’s existing liberal bias, thus meriting the most iteration and exposure to player feedback. Design also placed a limit on artifacts: 12 total objects with 6 mapping to Defense and 6 mapping to interior. This required players to communicate and self organize rather than attempt to engage with all objects independently. 

Goals for next week include documenting feedback from the playtest, iterating based on the feedback, adding new art assets, and scheduling the next playtest.