Hiya! Don Don here to present to you our weekly recap. On this fine Monday morning, we’ll be discussing Week 5. Can you believe that we’re already more than halfway through STL? I seriously can’t. Time is flying. 

 

Week 5 was a bit of a crazy, but pivotal week for Ephan and I. We started off the week continuing to prototype and build our puzzle-based, escape room game in Unity. I won’t go into too much detail of how this game worked since we scrapped it, but essentially it was a split screen on one device. The two players were in different rooms and what one player did in their room affected the other player’s room. For instance, player one turning on a light switch might turn on the lamp in player two’s room which would then reveal a clue. 

 

While coming up with the puzzles, we realized this may not be the best genre for our co-op language learning game. The puzzles would be where we’d incorporate the language learning, but it was quite restrictive because we could only teach so much through one puzzle. Not to mention, coming up with language puzzles that involved two players speaking a different language and somehow working together was incredibly difficult. That, and because this wasn’t the most efficient way to teach a language in a game… we went back to the drawing board.

 

This was a pretty frustrating time for Ephan and I. We felt like we were falling behind schedule. We asked ourselves what the biggest problems to solve might be. 

 

1. What if the two players have zero knowledge of each other’s language? 
2. If that’s the case, how will they communicate?
3. If they can’t communicate, how will they work together… in this co-op game? 

 

Solution: Language exchange partners require the two to at least have a basic knowledge of each others’ language to hold a basic conversation. So, for our game (which is essentially for language exchange partners) they too must possess a basic knowledge of each others’ language.  

 

We came up with some ideas, including potentially using drawing as an alternative to communication. After our meeting with Andrew, we’ve decided on a new game: 

 

Objects are disappearing from this world! You and your partner will have to work together to restore these objects to the world. There will be word bubbles in Cantonese and English. Each object will be assigned to a language–you’ll have to work together, teach your friend what each object means and drag and drop to restore that object. 

 

We finished off the week with a hangout sesh with the other finalists. It was really nice to see how the other projects are doing and it was inspiring to hear them talk about what their projects meant to them. 

 

We’ve started developing our new game and will continue to prototype and develop throughout this week. We’ll be implementing the game mechanics such as drag and drop, and character dialogue for instance. It has been a learning experience, but we’re so glad to be at this stage and we’re looking forward to this chapter of our project! See you in the next recap. :) 

 

Yours truly,

 

Gina and Ephan