Week 7 is the time for halves presentation and taking in halves feedback while zoning in more specifically on all aspects of pre-production. The team was able to turn faculty’s previously lukewarm responses and expectations into something more positive. Overall, the faculties liked what we have done in the past 6 weeks. This greatly helped the team morale and validated a lot of art and design decisions the team has made. More specifically, the faculties loved the environment art and world building, as well as linking in-game character capabilities with real life animal analogies.
On the other hand, there are many smaller points and details that needed to be addressed. As of right now, the main bird character does not visually register as a flightless bird. Additionally, it looks like a specific kind of bird. This visual statement can be taken at face value. There is nothing wrong with it being a bit more vague so that the team doesn’t get tied down with any initial expectation from the audience. If we still want to go down this path, we need to make it clearer. The team discussed solutions that could address the issue.
While the game the team envisioned is not heavy on the story but rather filled with small bits of lore for the player to discover, the faculty somehow got the impression that the game is a narrative focused emotional experience that tells a serious story. There is a clear gap between what is expected and what is planned down the road. The faculty advised the team to use animatics/short animation or storyboard sequences that visually convince the audience of the tone and complexity of the game. As to how the team would love to take in this piece of advice on future direction is still unclear.
In terms of target demographic, 5-12 is a fairly wide target demographic. The bottom line of the range can’t really have text to read or navigate complex space as much as the high end of this range. Meanwhile what inspires an emotional reaction in x population is a question the team needs to answer.
Lastly, the team needs to decide what the actual platform on which the game will ship, otherwise there is no way to come up with a reasonable budget estimate. Having a delivery platform is a big red flag.
The team received a B+ on product and a B+ on presentation. That’s a great grade for halves. In short, this week was more focused on tweaking than major changes/breakthroughs as Our Halves presentation and feedback was the main focus of the week.