V3 NEW FEATURES

• Removed other pets - kept the tiger

• Updated tiger visuals

• Implemented stat bars

• iPod build

• Implemented buttons for feed, rest, play

• Added match-3 game template

• Changed graphics of close up scene background

• Walk & idle animation

Today I attended the Barclays Eagle Labs Game Day event at St Marys Stadium, Southampton. This was the first large-scale public playtesting opportunity I’ve had. I also presented Cogshel - more on this can be found here.

I received an overwhelmingly large amount of support and positive feedback this day from people who had never seen or heard anything about my game. This was really reassuring and I felt even more motivated to develop Cogshel to the best of my abilities.

The majority of people were most excited about the idea that it is intended to help young children with their mental well being. Several parents tested the game and expressed that their children would love having a game like Cogshel to play.

I gathered a lot of information about the game during this session:

• This was the first time getting the game onto iPod devices. The UI elements didn’t scale so they weren’t positioned correctly on the screen. They were also much smaller than I had expected, thought this is also due to the iPod size being 2.3 x 4.9 x 0.2", which is significantly smaller than the average phone that people use now. Regardless, I will make them bigger and figure out a way to get them to scale. Updates on UI can be found here.
• Everyone is confused with the long press to access the close up tiger profile, so I will remove this. It was just a temporary interaction that we included in the prototype but hadn’t changed yet.
• The stat bars decreased too quickly so I will lower the amount they go down by.
• The mini-game layout was too small, to the point where it was almost unplayable. I will change the amount of icons used and make the board much bigger. Updates on the mini-game can be found here.
• The walk is too slow and needs to be sped up. The frames in the animation also don’t loop so I need to add the reverse into the animator for a seamless walk cycle.

IMG_6458.MOV

Screen recording of v3

Screen recording of v3

IMG_6460.mov

NEXT STEPS/FEEBACK TAKEWAY

My next tasks will be to work on functionality. As of yet, Cogshel is more visual than a actual game. So I need to get the buttons working and resolve all the bugs that I discussed (above).