We are back & busy!
Demo path came to close but The SILQ Project continues onto Product Path of the EduLAB program with gusto and renewed determination! But as year changed our team also went through small changes. We said farewell to Hanna, one of our three graphic designers. In her place Oona Huoponen became newest addition to our team! She will be busy being in charge of our marketing, business & research... The expertise that our team was missing until now.
It has been a month since we came back to the project, but we have been everything BUT idle! This post is about everything we have gotten done these past 30 days.
FIRST THINGS FIRST
Although the very first week went to making ourselves comfortable in our new office space, we also had to determine what our attempt at Product Path will be about.
Most of the first weeks were more about talking and discussing than doing, because we needed to determine what exactly we would like to do with the time that we have and get everyone on the team to be on the same page. Only after that we were able to start setting goals and milestones.
SO WHAT NOW?
We have 4 months during which we aim to finish our full game. Tremendous task, but we are feeling very ambitious and determined!
SHORT ROUND OF USER TESTING
Also after lengthy discussion we came to a conclusion that we must make Finnish version of our DEMO game and have Finnish children properly test it. After the hunt for appropriate narrator voice and quick recording session we edited and added fresh Finnish dialogue to the game and set out for another round of user testing.
We visited two kindergartens in Oulu and as we tested our Demo we collected some valuable feedback. We have been feeling very grateful for being received so well in the kindergartens we have collaborated with.
STORYBOARD
Creating a good story is our backbone and it was not come as surprise that getting it right has taken quite bit of time. After testing our demo we have become more aware of our little weaknesses regarding the story and plan to fix them in the full game.
Good story is directly linked to the quality of our game but also our biggest bottleneck when it comes to planning our project. Nothing can get truly get started before we have established story and puzzle connections. Our Art Director Marjut Färman has most story writing experience from our team so naturally the main responsibility of it went to her.
When writing our story the most important things to think were "why something happens, how it happens, and to who it happens to." The story introduced a need for certain type of persona and it is the strongest point of action from where character creation starts.
Animal kingdom is enormous and even overwhelming. Traditional stories and fairytales and their usage of animal characters has been essential research and a central source of inspiration for us.
Surprising amount of research had to be done and for allowing creative flow means setting things up for proper mood, from listening to genre appropriate music to just delving deeply into animal related mythologies. Even though at times we were wondering if this excess research was truly necessary it was not in vain since we came up with quite a few grand ideas.
However in this project, puzzles and stories have to be created in conjunction, and that requires a lot of brainstorming. It has taken the co-operation from every member of the team to help with this. After Marjut wrote the basic length of the story we all sat in a meeting for 5 straight hours of brainstorming the puzzle-story connections and concept. And let me say that these crunches of teamwork have bore great fruit so far!
FIRST EARLY CONCEPT ART
Of course with a new story comes new characters and environments to concept!
We are going for a more polished character design in a sense that we will add more personality to them, and think more deeply who they are and what they do. These qualities should perfectly reflect on how they look. From their posterior, facial features to their clothing of choice shall be thought out carefully.
Even main character Hannah gets a new twist. But shhh. Spoilers.
NEW PUZZLE CONCEPTS
Demo we created in the autumn introduced the first puzzle, but there will be two or three brand new ones we must do user testing for.
MORE CODING FOR CODER
New puzzles also must be coded so definitely work to do for our coder Antti Kleemola. We must add saving function among many things and rework user interface. Quite a bit to do, and we are indeed discussing the possibility of recruiting another coder to join our team. Lets see how we manage!
