This week we focused mostly on level design. We had several meetings discussing how we want our players to experience the whole game. First of all, we decided that our ideal audience would be experienced boxers. But our playtesters, which mostly likely are ETCers, are relatively new to boxing. Thus, we designed another punching tutorial along with our original onboard tutorial to set the tone of the game and help our playtesters to enjoy the game better. Then, we chose to separate this punching tutorial from our combination-pattern-recognition training so that experienced boxers can just choose to skip the punching and go directly to the specialized trainings they want.
We also put many thoughts on sound implementation. Currently we only have the punch hit sound implemented. We created several script lines like “What’s the next combo?”, “Great!”, to give players a more coach-feeling experience within the virtual space. We also planned to incorporate rhythm in our combo training by giving them a drumline beat that they can follow. Their score will also be determined based on their rhythm. We believe that by doing so, we can avoid the potential that some players may just do random punches, which is really bad for their training.
For next week, we’ll start sending out playtest surveys. We have a basic level prototype to test. As our playtesters may not be our ideal audience, we’ll focus less on the design aspect but more on the general feeling of the game. As for the design aspect, we are planning to have another meeting with our expert Francis next week to get his feedback and approvement before we move on to the next specialized training.