As we mentioned last week, we did a playtest on our story and story options on Monday! (SO we could have time to show the results to the instructors and client and also have to improve the story within this week.)
Here are the summary of the playtesting results.
The results are positive, which showed that the playtesters found the scenarios made sense to them. However, the client and instructors worried that the options didn’t provide the player agency and the story didn’t be branched enough. We agreed. The next step is to adjust the story to let the player see the actual consequences of his/her choices. Also, one thing that we should keep in mind is that we don’t want to put a choice that we know nobody would pick.
The client felt excited to see our improved puzzle design (mentioned in last week’s blog) and agreed that the puzzles could be a perfect way to show the negative impacts of microaggressions like being anxious and experiencing a loss of memory.
However, we did agree with our instructors that what we lacked was a working prototype to show the client the techniques of counteracting microaggressions. We understood the urgency of the need for a working prototype of Chapter 1. We planned to have a prototype to show them on Monday and Tuesday.
Here, we want to show you our updated story that responds to the feedback from our peers and instructors.
Blindspot Chapter 1
Yuanqin
- Before Public Speaking Class(Ascription of intelligence)
Karen: "Hey Meimei, How's it going?"
Meimei: "I'm doing pretty good! How about you?"
Karen: "Um, I'm ok, it's just..."
Meimei: "What's wrong?"
Karen: "The quiz..."
Meimei: "That online quiz from our Calculus class?"
Karen: "Yeah. That quiz is just so hard, which takes me so much time during the weekend."
Choices:
Meimei: (1.)"Exactly! I also spent lots of time on that quiz too."(2.)"Yeah! TA even said the grade would be curved."
Karen: (1->)"Oh, really? So how did you figure out extra credit questions?"(2->)"Nice! Did TA talk about the extra credit question during your discussion section?"
Choices:
Meimei: (1->1->)"I was actually still working on that quiz and just got some ideas for that."(2->2->)"Not for our discussion. But I may have some ideas for these questions now."
Karen: "Great! So would you like to share your idea with me?"
Meimei: "Sure! Let's take a look together!"
(Puzzle - 1)
Karen: "Wow, how did you figure it out so fast?"
Karen: "So Chinese people are all good at math, right?"
Choices:
Meimei:(1)"Well... I don't know... Probably we are just gifted for that?" - "Challenge the stereotype"(2)"Um... Not really, I just did lots of researches on that yesterday." - "Express disagreement" (3)"...maybe... do you guys really believe that?" - "X"
Karen: (1->)"hah, I like the way you solve that question. how about this next one?" (2->)"Same! That question also bothered me so much. So do you have any ideas for the next one?"(3->)"Oh, don't overthink. It's just a compliment."
Choices:
Meimei:(1->1->)"Thanks. Just give me one second. I need to take a look at my notes."(2->2->)"Yeah, but I'm not 100% sure for that. Maybe we can go over this question together.(3->3->)"Um...never mind... let's go for the next question."
(Puzzle - 1)
Karen: (1->1->1->)"Nice job, Meimei! From your notes, I truly believe you must be working so hard on math before." (2->2->2->)"Thanks for sharing your problem-solving skills. You must be working so hard for that yesterday."(3->3->3->)"Thank you Meimei! So probably you guys really have the talent for math. Or you all have a great passion for that!"
- In Public Speaking Class(Ridiculed for accent / Rendered invisible)
Professor: "Guys, you have 20 minutes to prepare for the upcoming presentation. After finalizing your ideas, each team will get 5 minutes to talk."
Karen: "Alright, Let's get started."
Frank: "Sure! I got an idea about the topic for our presentation, which is ......"
Karen: "That's a good idea! Maybe we can also add something like......"
Frank: "Yeah, that's a good point! We should definitely think about your suggestion for this topic."
Meimei: "Actually, I have another idea to present this topic."
Meimei: "Based on what the professor just mentioned, maybe... um... we can think this topic in this way...."
(Puzzle - 2)
Frank: "...Oh, I got your point. Do you mean something like this......?"
Professor: "You only have 5 minutes remaining for your in-class presentation. Make sure you guys are ready for what you gonna say."
Karen: "Meimei, your idea sounds really good. But I think your idea is kind of similar to Frank's, and we can always add it as an appendix when we finalize our presentation."
Karen: "What do you think?"
Choices:
Meimei:(1->)"OK. Nevermind. Let's just do Frank's idea. We don't have too much time now" - "X"(2->)"Alright, maybe it's my bad that didn't make it clear. Let me express it in another way......" - "Interrupt and redirect"(3->) I think you didn't get my point actually. It's very different from Frank's idea. It's like......" - "point out the commonality"
(Puzzle - 2)
Frank: (1->1->)"Nice job, everyone. So we'll present what we just discussed. MeiMei, if there is a chance, we can talk about your idea next time."
Frank: (2->2->)"Thanks for clarifying your idea for us! I really appreciate it. We should consider your idea as part of our presentation."
Karen: (3->3->)"Oh, sorry, I didn't quite understand your idea just now. I believe it will be an excellent point if we add it to our presentation."
Chapter 1 Flashback...
Of course, we also had updates from our artist!
The programmer is working on putting the story, puzzles and art assets together in Unity 😀 We’ll have a playable Chapter 1 then!
Oh, don’t forget about sounds…
As we planned to add voiceover to the Prologue and Flashback cut scenes, we created the below voiceover clips. The Prologue and Flashback is a monologue of the protagonist, Meimei, who is an international Chinese student who just came to the US. We intended to use our own voices to express the authenticity here. Those clips just for the demo and we’ll use the sound studio or professional voice recording equipment once we decide who’s doing the voiceover. Here are 3 versions of our “voiceover casting”.
V1 – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i6Eg_qEtiHG78uhFOmTt1f1v4M1Hlf1b/view?usp=sharing
V2 –
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fpqw0U6We5nYeVfLirSUbqtyYprfU_uM/view?usp=sharing
v3 –
https://drive.google.com/file/d/12e9d0Jl1Ok20cBiRVm6hd_XUjs3x_n1U/view?usp=sharing
What do you think? Which clip is more suitable for the protagonist?
Stay tuned!
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