When we had a much smaller team, any work we wanted to see come to fruition, we had to do ourselves. As someone more on the designing rather than the building side of things, it’s so cool to see sketches on paper and mock-ups in Balsamiq/Google Slides finally turn into game assets.

For example, the title screen done by Stefan…

…and the Journal that Caitlin is building in Unity.

With all the work I did in the winter in someone else’s hands, most of my work this spring has been making sure the builders have the information and assets they need, but mostly thinking long-term about how larger amounts of content will be organized for our own use and presented to the user. For example, once more deponents are added into the game, how will we keep track of the deponents we’ve added, and the journal notes that must appear in the journal after each conversation? As a potential solution, I created the spreadsheet pictured below (click for larger image):

From this spreadsheet, we can see:

1. Which deponents are in which version of the game
2. The description that appears next to their name in the Notes section of the journal
3. Their 250 character max notes paraphrased from the conversation with the deponent
4. Which variables their deposition may influence in the player’s mind
5. If audio exists that could be implemented into Unity

If this system works, Narrative, UI/UX, and Sound teams can provide all the information to the programmers who can then plop it into the game without having to search through folders and folders organized by someone else. As the game gets bigger with more deponents, knowing which deponents are in which version of the game and which variables they may influence in the player’s End Game decisions will be invaluable. We want to have a large and evenly mixed set of opinions and voices in the game that the player will have to reckon with while playing. Hopefully, this system will prevent us from only adding deponents who view the soldiers unfavorably, or adding only one who comments on the number of people in front of the State House. Just as we’ll have to player-test the Journal and other UI, we can test this organizational system out while the game is still small so we can change it before we become buried in content.

The Depositions page is where the player will be confronted with the most information. With the Notes section well under way, we’ve started thinking about how we will present the depositions so the player…

1. Knows where the depositions are
2. Sees that there is a deposition available for each deponent after they talk to them
3. Can easily access specific depositions without having to flip through them all one by one

At the moment, we think the solution may be a link to the deponent’s deposition from their Notes page, and a table of contents system within the depositions tab itself (click for larger image):

 

Of course, we will know for sure if this design is the best when it’s in a build that can be tested. Until then, we’ll tinker with what’s on the drawing board at the moment.