Devlog #5 Updated Prototype + Final Presentation Summary

Hello! As we finish off our quarter, our team has made progress revising our game based on the second playtesting back on Tuesday, May 24, 2022. From the previous devlog, we went in-depth by sharing the changes we made in the setting and character development and also emphasized important touch points from participant feedback during our in-person playtest led by Santiago & Lynn, and the virtual playtest conducted by Janet, Irandy, and Maelanny through zoom. Based on the observation summaries, there was general feedback on the look and feel of the game’s interface and there was some important feedback regarding the structure of the storylines and response options.  If you’re interested in checking out the latest prototype, please feel free to download the Twine file by the end of this post!

Our Game Dev Progress

Within the last 2 weeks of class, we decided it was best to prioritize at least 2 character storyline journeys to provide some varied interaction experiences and for the team to present playthroughs for the final presentation (Characters Roux and Jishin). In addition to that, visual aesthetics of the game’s background images became implemented in the Twine prototype and character visuals were sketched to represent the potential looks of the characters from the inspirational mood boards. Further photo research was conducted to apply more background visuals in the prototype and there were proposed music backgrounds to have a better feeling of coffee shop/romance ambiance.  

Analysis of Interaction User Flows 

Since the beginning of our game design process, 3 interaction user flows were created for the team to better understand how we can best implement the player transformations (Identity, Behavior, and Relationships). The main thing that changed was to treat each flow as chapters in the game. In general, stories are organized in chapters, and video games implement that in some games by letting next steps flow based on the players’ decision-making actions throughout the game.

This is where the identity transformation takes place for players to freely identify their role in the game. Our team aimed to make this game gender inclusive because we want to make players comfortable to be who they want to be in the game, whether it’s using their own name or not. This also prevents issues of gender assumptions, so we want to make this game gender inclusive so there is no pressure of exposing sexual orientation to proceed with the game.

The Behavior Transformation takes place here, where the player is able to interact more with their chosen potential romantic partner. Out of all the chapters, it is expected for the player to have the most interaction here.

In the end, the player gets to choose how to continue the interaction with their potential romantic partner(PRP). As discussed on a previous devlog, the relationship score was planned to be implemented and calculated based on how good or bad the interactions were between the player and their PRP. Keep in mind, we are not pushing any sort of promoting relationships as the end goal. The goal is to decide whether it is good for the player or not. Therefore, options lie between having a romantic or friendly relationship, or nothing at all. The displays of options also depend on how high the relationship score was, but the “nothing” option will always be visible. 

Setting & Aesthetics

We proceeded with the idea of presenting the game in modern-day Chicago, but also providing a fantasy and youthful vibe into it. As you will see on the updated wireframes, the font, Alegreya, complements the magical vibes of the background images with pops of color. As a visual novel style game, it is important to display great readability, so the serif font style greatly represents that quality. 

Updated Wireframes - made with Figma

To add more branding in the game, a simple logo was displayed with a touch of a relationship theme by adding a heart icon on the digital mug. The color scheme is balanced here with the dimness and slight pops of color. The majority of the color scheme has shades of brown and orange.

In relation to figure 1, this is a draft example of the player inputting a name to proceed with the game. To prevent players from being overwhelmed with displaying their identity in the game, their interactions with the non-players will be solely based on the name they inputted.

Time stamp displays (top right) were not implemented in the final version of the prototype, but with the inspiration from the game Monster Prom, there was agreement within the team to hopefully apply the time duration of the interactions for future work. As what you will see in the playthrough videos though, this version was applied with the basic attachment of a dark rectangle overlay on top of the background image.

Like other visual novel games, this is a traditional view of dialogue boxes, where background images are more visibly shown. Our team would have needed more time to adjust the game’s visuals if we wanted to implement this display.

Character Visual Development

With the help of inspirational mood boards that were proposed by the individual team members for their game characters, Maelanny sketched visuals of the characters to create an imagined look of how the potential romantic characters would look like in the game. Although we were not able to implement all game visuals, the wireframes were our way to visualize the feel of the game experience.

As you can see on the wireframe, this is the section of the game where the player already has almost finished the first chapter of the game. If in case the player would like to look back on information about any of the characters, the information icons on the top right of the character visuals can be clicked on. 

Main scenarios inspired by research for each character

*Characters that are bolded were the primary focus of displaying a complete scenario in the latest prototype

1. AMARY= Peer Pressure to get into relationship + honesty

Potential Challenges: The player finds it easier to make second chance impressions with this character because despite some flaws, this character doesn’t take bad impressions too seriously right away. However, this character may need constant reassurance if the player is into them.

2. JISHIN = Frustration + Honesty + Body Image issues

Potential Challenges: Easily hurt by rejection and has a short fuse.

3. ROUX= Dealing with Anxiety

Potential Challenges: Roux is very good at reading people and knowing what they want to hear, making it difficult to know what they really think. They are a spontaneous and exciting partner but has trouble following through on plans and commitments. Someone who dates Roux may question themselves often because Roux can be very convincing and confident.

4. GESHA = Going through relationship barriers due to cultural/religious values

Potential Challenges: Character seems very respectful and open-minded at first but when things start to get more serious they develop a sense of moral superiority around their religious beliefs and expect the same views of their partner. She can also be sensitive with not being respected/listened to. 

5. IVET = Body image issues

Potential Challenges: Ivet’s insecurities and overthinking may cause them disbelief positive comments directed at them: feeling that those comments originated from someone being nice and wanting to make them feel well, and not honesty. Takes time to trust completely as a response to the discrimination suffered. Tends to value others’ perspectives than their own.

Finalized Gameplay Prototype Playthrough

During our final presentation, our teammate, Santiago, made gameplay recordings of playthroughs with PRP characters, Roux and Jishin to display the different scenarios that players can experience. Some of our proposed background visuals were implemented, but for future work, hopefully, the rest of the visuals will be applied. 

Link to view the rest of proposed background visuals

Link to view Playthrough #1 with Roux 

Link to view Playthrough #2 with Jishin

Figures 9 and 10 show examples of how the background visuals were displayed. Compared to the wireframes made on Figma, the game designer of the team, Santiago, successfully attempted to display a few elements of the vision of the game’s user interface.

Final Presentation Summary & Guest Feedback

Link to Presentation

Contents of our team's presentation included:

During our final class meeting on Tuesday, June 7 from 5:45 - 9 pm, each team had about 20 minutes in total to conduct the presentation (~12 mins) and receive feedback from their assigned guest to give critiques. In relation to our game topic, our guest critic was Drew Crecente, who is the founder and executive director of Jennifer Ann’s Group, which is an organization aimed to share awareness of Teen Dating Violence.

Our team desired to present the purpose of the project and the overall game scope along with sharing the prototype playthroughs from our latest prototype. Due to our decision not to share the overviews from our playtesting, Drew addressed certain elements of our game that had been discussed with the team prior to the final class meeting. If we had more time to go through the details of our playtesting and changes, we would have definitely shown those details to the guest. Overall, our team's designed game can have the potential to be developed further. Besides the game design of the storyline, there definitely needs more time to work with the user experiences inside the game's interface. Over the course of 10 weeks, we created a prototype that incorporated the player transformations we wanted to apply with minimal features for a minimum viable product(MVP). 

Feedback about Storyline Interactions

• Some answers looked similar to each other
  • Drew noticed that the response options may be too obvious as a right or wrong answer to the players. There was a need of further investigation for the team to rephrase the selections and possibly find the correct number of responses we should provide to the player
  • As mentioned, our team was not able to discuss the early versions of our prototype, which was the Galane vignette. If we had more time to revise the scenarios, we have more time to think about how much we can implement realistic scenarios based on our various types of research (secondary, user interviews, surveys)

Feedback about visuals

Our team had an understanding of how art and visuals were a big communication help. From what Drew saw in our prototype, we were not able to present all of our ideas on the look and feel,  but he did not seem to have major trouble understanding the route of where we wanted the game to go. His feedback was that our team should think more about adding more mood to the scenario by adding background music or sound effects, which was part of the future plan. In addition, he has mentioned that it could have been more ideal to think about creating various facial expressions of the characters in the long run so that the player can understand more about the outcomes of their decisions in the game. His last remarks talked about possibly working on the game further because he liked the concept and was curious about what else the game can offer. 

Next Steps

We missed out on iterating our prototype more from other user feedback, particularly from experts and our direct target user group, so that is definitely one of the next steps if we had more time to work on this project. There was also a desire to expand scenario possibilities by connecting stories from actual data we have collected. UI designs will also need more improvements. 

• Continue to develop the storylines of all characters
  • Pulling in inspiration from user interview scenarios
• Enhance the interface of the prototype with more visual interactions that go along with the storyline & improve character visuals
  • Implementing Diary Feature & Chapter visits (see Figures 12 & 13)
• Begin integrating concrete safety elements into planning
  • The “X card” and resources for support 
• Create a beta version of the game and playlets with experts and target user group
  • Obtain feedback on potential romantic partner names and ideate new names
  • Iterate on design based on add’l feedback

If you’d like to try the latest prototype, Download the Twine file here:

The Right Brew Prototype (Latest - June 2022)

Thank you for reading! Have a great summer!

Team Healthy Relationship