Devlog#2 Alpha

Over the past few weeks, we officially started early production. While we are still testing some design decisions. My focus on this phase was on the visuals and their communication within the game.

Just a recap that our game’s goal  is to reduce the stigma around opioid addiction. We try to achieve this transformation by letting our player experience the gradual but unexpected growth of their dependency. With that in mind, we wanted the visuals to not only look good, but also to communicate the user’s state while still being respectful.

1. Chronic Pain visual and post processing

• Chronic Pain visual and post processing
• Expanding our character map
• Office Assets Production
• Knitting placeholders assets
• UI development
• Readability before playtesting
• What did I learn from these last few weeks

One of our core mechanic in the memory sequence is the pain system. Jessica, our current only playable character, is telling her story from before she started taking opioid and how the pain and opioids affected her life. To do that we decided that as the character feels more pain, they would move slower but also be affected by some visual effects. The first one we decided was a vignette effect, but after some reflection we decided to experiment with more effects.

We experimented with:

What we learned:

• Red Tint would communicate feelings like anger or “evil” rather than the person being in pain.
• Film Grain would give a creepier aesthetic as it replicates a CCTV effect which is also used in some horror films.
• Bloom was a bit harsh on the eyes but could work with other effects.
• Some effects work better in tandem with others.

With that in mind we decided to settle on the Vignette, mixed with the Chromatic aberration and Bloom. Having these 3 effect together would make the playtester “ have a feel of claustrophobia” and that the bloom would “look like you are dealing with a really bad headache”.

2. Expanding our character map

After that we decided that we would need a bit more info on the other character of the game, Jessica’s Partner: Lee.

We went through a similar process as Jessica and created a character map that would map out a few info such as:

• Personality trait and response to situations
• Body / facial features
• Outfit and general aesthetic
• Origin
• Current Job

With these information, we are able to continue on the date part of the memory as it informs his reaction and the way he engages with Jessica. It also helps for the visual as when I will be doing concept art, these info will be extremely useful.

3. Office Assets Production

Now for the production, my primary task was to begin creating assets for the Office memory sequence.

This included:

With that in mind, due to time restrictions, I had time to focus on the main on such as the desk, computer, cubicle and filling cabinet. The rest of the assets are currently placeholders that I had made for the proof of concept.

4. Knitting placeholders assets

Last week we also had an in house playtesting session. During that session we focused on the “oh shoot, we can’t test this or they wont understand this” to know which part of the game would need at least placeholders assets for it to be comprehensive. During this session, we realized that the knitting interaction was still a white circle that would change color on hit.

Tester were still confused as to what was happening during that part. So we decided to have a placeholder assets made for the time being.

This would serve as a temporary fix until we get to the refinement of the hobby part of the game.

5. UI development

For the UI, we started by making an asset that would be on screen for a majority of the game, the Pills tablet . These assets needed to have 2 version, the empty and full version.

For the creation of this tablet, I needed to make sure that it would still maintain accuracy. After some research, it seems that when Morphine is prescribed in pills, it usually is in doses between 10mg and 20 mg. Some references would show a blue pill that had the number 15 on it which impacted the design of this asset.

Alongside the pills tablet, I also started working on the title screen to chip at it.

I wanted the title screen to be representative of the game, as the game is currently named Next Chapter and you are working as a librarian to learn people’s story. I went with a book as the title screen

After some feedback from the team, we did decide to tweak it which will be done in the future as it is not the highest priority.

(current sketch of the title screen)

6. Readability before playtesting

Lastly, before playtesting, we needed to ensure that some basic signifiers were in place. We wanted to be able to test the player’s thoughts on the pain system and the fetch mechanics in the office game. We had some glaring communication problems such as where is the player supposed to go and what are they currently doing. With that in mind we decided to do add a few things for the playtest:

• Sound effects for interactions
• Office fetch quest having an arrow point you in the right direction
• Current object interacted with hovering over player head
• Interactible highlight triggering from further away
• Placeholder narration informing the player of what’s supposed to happen there.

7. What did I learn from these last few weeks

From the last few weeks of work, the scope of the project really settled in. It was mandatory to create a proper asset list, and a schedule that would support it. With these, managing the priority was also important. Sometime as an artist, you might want to work on the fun and pretty stuff. But the game needs the functional stuff first. For the future, my goal is to  double down on the assets and be done most if not all the necessary assets by the beta testing of the game leaving space for refinement at the end.