Playtest #1 Feedback – Speed Dating In Class Oct 19, 2023

For this tiny playable prototype, I set up a Twine project and created the beginning few pages of a branching story.

For context, I chose the second idea out of the two ideas I initially considered.

Short video demo: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ugmt3LvvWrNFM3epwYCSUfXos7C9w_rN/view?usp=share_link 

Observations/Feedback

• Currently, the game feels a bit weird. In the real world, humans love cats and puppies and keep them at home, so it doesn’t make sense why the game’s main characters (Cat and Puppy) are marginalized and going through all this.
  • Consider switching the main characters to animals that are more abused, caged, and endangered, in the wild, like tigers and deer
  • Alternatively, make it clear that cats and dogs are no longer loved by humans in this dystopian world
• When fleshing out the rest of the story, consider intertwining the two characters’ lives
  • Provide backstory to explain how they met
  • If one gets captured, the player can switch to the other character and try to save them
• Players want to know what led to this dystopian world and/or why the humans are doing this to the animals in the first place
• The accompanying images are currently generated by AI, but are slightly off from each other in terms of style

Things to Change

• Complete the narrative’s main branch in Twine, having a solid and interesting plot, playable from beginning to end
• Cat & Puppy → Bengal Tiger & Red Wolf (actually endangered species)
• Experiment with typewriter effect in Twine
• Convert the images to hand drawn with consistent style (ONLY IF HAVE TIME)

Photos/Screenshots