MFP Update - Weekly Diary

Weekly Diary

Week Beginning	Activity	Key Findings
18/08/13	Adaptive Difficulty	Research has suggested that there is a significant link between player skill and gameplay difficulty in relation to flow. Valve's Left 4 Dead games use a method of adjusting game difficulty to match changes in player skill. This is something I have been investigating to see whether I can implement an element of adaptive difficulty in the game. So far I have two possible methods; - Gradually decreasing in difficulty over time - Analyse previous level time and scale to a new difficulty for next level
	Dialogue	Certain situations require speech to be used to convey information and audio feedback in more complex situations (Rober & Masuch 2005). Currently waiting on some dialogue from voice actors. System in place, just need audio files. One of the problems is, as the game develops, new scenarios and controls are produced but the script, which includes control instructions has already been written and recorded. So I will either have to ask for more instructions, or some how make the controls work with what I have.
	Non-Repetitive Sound Design	The ambient sound design is beginning to take shape. The footstep system selects 1 of 10 files, and pans left to right/right to left. A room tone has been added, combination of several sounds. Need to cut the file size down to comply with creating a small file size. Radio chatter has been implemented, which was originally a 2 hour capture of RAF communication. A very small selection of this was cut into individual sound files, which are randomly selected at random time intervals. They have been panned to the left to contribute to the creation of a diverse spatial environment.
	Testing	The gameplay has been completed however I am still waiting on dialogue for the player feedback and questionnaire for testing to be done. I have set a deadline for Monday for dialogue to be sent to me, so if this deadline is met it can be implemented the same day. Meaning, testing can commence while improvements to sound design and game design can continue along side.