I’ve decided that to shift gears a bit and pick a temporary song that will at least help me demonstrate what I have in mind. I ended up picking an altered version of Ai Otsuka’s “Sakurabon”.

And with that, I scratched up some character designs and a storyboard for the narrative context.

Character Designs

The girl on top is Cherri. She looks like a sweet girl for the majority of the time, but can get scary when ticked.
The guy below is Chuck. To some his character up, he is a childish comic relief who enjoys annoying Cherri.

Gameplay

The game appears to be like Vib Ribbon, where the player has to avoid obstacles, which are arranged based on the background music. The call-and-response mechanism in the basketball drill stage still applies; while Chuck jumps in a certain pattern to avoid obstacles, Cherri has to repeat the jump pattern in order to avoid the same obstacles.

The Game
It’s a really ditry prototype where the character animations are yet done.
Press [Space] to start the game and jump.
[swfobj src=”http://a.parsons.edu/~wui669/DivineBeats/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/CherryChase.swf” align=”center”]

I actually have an alternative idea where the player plays as Chuck instead of Cherri.

We did a playtest session last Wendesday, and here are the 3 different prototypes I presented then.

You might want to turn on the volume to hear the sound effects.

Prototype 1
[swfobj src=”http://a.parsons.edu/~wui669/DivineBeats/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/basketBallDrill_00.swf” alt=”Basket Ball Drill – played with keyboard” align=”center”]

Prototype 2
Same as Prototype 1, with variation on the rhythm.
[swfobj src=”http://a.parsons.edu/~wui669/DivineBeats/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/basketBallDrill_diffScore.swf” align=”center”]

Prototype 3
Played with mouse instead of keyboard
[swfobj src=”http://a.parsons.edu/~wui669/DivineBeats/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/basketBallDrill_mouse.swf” align=”center”]

I tested these with 4 people during the playtest session, and 2 more outside of school.

Summing up of feedback I’ve got:

• A tutorial mode – or simply clearer instructions – will help a lot, as many testers at first didn’t grasp the input action and the goal of the game.
• While the sound and character animation are in-sync, the sound is lagging in relations with the key/mouse input. The delay appears to be worse with the mouse.
• The two characters are too similar and needs distinction.
• Some players rely on the audio to play, while others rely on the metronome graphics.
• Most players prefer the keyboard over the mouse.

The lagging between the input and the audio will obviously be an ongoing techical issue I have to deal with. Also, I might need to consider