The link to my first prototype can be found here.
For the prototype I brought to class today, I mainly wanted to observe whether the playtester would choose prompts that built a cohesive story, or whether their responses would vary across prompts. I also wanted to see how much information the playtester could infer about playable character’s identity from the very limited context provided in this version (basically no onboarding).
Watching the playthrough in class, I noticed that Butch (the playtester!) picked choices that were relatively cohesive in terms of the story they built. However, he suggested that in a small prototype like this one, the choices should be shuffled so that the ordering doesn’t hint at their cohesiveness. This will be less of an issue later, once I add in a responsive feature where the choices change based on earlier selections, but it is good feedback to apply to the first few choices the player encounters.
Butch was also able to glean the main characteristics of the playable character from the twelve initial prompts, correctly identifying that the player works in a field related to history and that the story revolves around investigating how a few individuals shape the public’s understanding of the past.
What I saw in class confirmed that the basic mechanics of the game should be generally sufficient to immerse the player into their character, which is encouraging as I move on to mapping out the full narrative. This playtest gave me logistical ideas for adjusting answers and allowing the user to interact with the system more seamlessly. Over the weekend, I plan on mapping out the storyline, estimating the number of recordings that I want to draft, and messing around with Twine to get a basic understanding of how intensive the coding component will be. I also need to make more explicit decisions about the playable character’s personality before I do any more writing!
