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## T2 Project Reflection and Next Steps Worksheet

## Original idea
*Revisit your original goals (check out your project proposal).*

#### MVP Progress?
*What progress did you make towards your original MVP / on your stretch goals?*
- Met all MVP goals for term 1
- Made some further progress as well

#### How is it different?
*How is your project different from what you envisioned?*
- Moving away from open world a bit, ended up with a more mechanic- and level-based approach
- Ended up with more than one mechanic

#### Still happy with direction?
*Most importantly, are you still happy with the direction that your project is headed?*
- Overall like where the game is going but recognize that there are many areas for imporvement.
- Planning to tighten the scope of the project
- Planning to combine mechanics into one central mechanic

#### What do you wish went differently?
*What do you wish had gone differently / are there features you wish you hadn't made or made differently?*
- The biggest hurdle has been solidifying our idea for a game mechanic, I think having a scope that is more narrow in the future will solve the issues of working on things we later dont use. 

## Feedback
*What feedback from last term do you think is relevant and interesting to incorporate. List your feedback broadly and label them with how they stack up for your vision. These may already be in ZenHub but after this discussion they should be.*
* [critical 🔥]
    * Some mechanics were very unintuitive
    * Less walking, more puzzle-solving
    * Story (characters/aliens?, context for goo/spaceship,)
* [stretch goal 🍦]
    * Redesigned environment
* [rejected ⛔]
    * Simpler movement (we want to keep the game engaging and not feel dumbed down / only math)

#### Questions
*Think about where the project is headed. What are some questions that you/users/me have about direction/features/functionality that could use some validation?*
* Can the game be fun without the open-world aspect?
* How can we keep things simple but still fun?
* How can we make mechanics more intuitive?

#### Answers
*Think of ways that you might validate these: discussion with your team, advice from me, polling the class, asking users, and/or collecting and analyzing usage data. Write down some ideas here. This isn't how to validate your project as a whole, but about specific feedback/features.*
* Yes, as long as things don't get monotonous / don't feel super abstracted (like a level system could make things feel)
* Simplify mechanics but have a tight gameplay loop, not lots of dead time.
* Combine mechanics into one. Introduce the mechanic through a tutorial, and give lots of feedback to the user.

## Vision
*Refine your vision.*
* Reinforce that we are trying to teach math without it being obviousq
* Create a unified mechanic that all puzzles use, that is both simple but also has the potential for complexity
* Simplify scope
    * Replace open world with an approach were finishing a certain set of puzzles opens the next area, with more puzzles that when completed open the next, etc.
* Minimize dead time
* Take a more whimsical and fantastical art direction

#### Feedback Analysis
* Need to build out a way to teach the player to play 
    * Players were to confused
* Tim (Professor Tim) suggested that we haven't completely met our original goal of a playful and colorful environment. This is something that we should work on. 

#### Pivot/Adjustment
*If you were to consider a pivot or adjustment in what the product is, what would it be?*
- New gameplay
        - grid system which can contain an arrangement of the following objects:
            - Goo emitters
                - Goo emitters send out the specified amount of goo when triggered by the player
            - Goo receivers
                - Goo receivers activate when the proper amount of goo flows into the receiver
                - Activation can open doors, or change puzzle, etc. Goal of each puzzle is to activate all goo receivers in the puzzle
            - Goo pipes
                - Goo flows from emitters through pipes
                - If pipe does not have another object attached to it's end, goo fails to continue flowing
            - Goo machines
                - This is where math happens
                - Goo machines have two inputs
                - When the goo machine receives input from two different sources, it can add/subtract/multiply/divide the goos together, based on the goo machine's type
        - Player can change what object is in each grid space
        - Spaces can be locked, meaning the player cannot change that space
        - Emitters and receivers will often be locked
        - Player will have a limited supply of pipes/machines to add to the grid

#### Ideal Goal
*In an ideal world if you could build out your project to be anything without any constraints of time or skill what would you want to do? Dream big — you can do more than you think. Try to push the limits. This does **not** commit you to anything, so don't worry about overpromising, this is to get you dream about where you **really** want your project to go without constraints. Please don't skimp on this part.*
- Expansive world, puzzles situated around the world
    - User is able to choose which puzzles to work on
- Enemies and NPC aliens that can help you or hinder you when completing the puzzles
- In-depth storyline that is engaging and educational
- The game is visually engaging and unique 
- Points system / end goal to incentivize users to continue playing

#### Mission Statement
*Now write a mission statement for your project as you see it after all of this great brain activity. Just a few sentences suffices.*
- Make an engaging educational game that promotes curiosity, mathematical learning, problem solving, and above all else fun!


## How to get there
*Now that you've thought about where your project is headed and where you want it to go write down how might approach getting there.*
- Create concept art for modified puzzle structure 
- start coding how the pieces of the puzzle will interact in a basic environment 
- create more custom 3d models to make make the environment more engaging 
- integrate the puzzle with the new models 
- plan/implement the level/module interaction of entire game
    - how character gets from puzzle to puzzle, beats enemies/ gets points 


#### What are your concrete next steps?
- concept art 
    - whimsical 
    - specifically for grid look  / part look
- grid and machines coding wise, just setting up very basic in current environment 
    - Grid system, where parts can be added or removed
    - Basic parent script for grid parts, with inputs(s) and output(s)
    - Grid system should be able to take output from part, and pass it as input to the adjacent part to its output

#### What are some blockers in your way? 
- We have good concept art, but not a ton of experience with 3D modeling in the group
- Time is short 
- Monday afternoon rowing practice :/

## TeamWork
*lastly, at the end of last term in the term summary you did a bit of work around teamwork. this is just a reminder for everyone to revisit that and if you have any new or further thoughts after the break feel free to record them here.*
- We like each other :) 