As part of my course, I was given the opportunity to showcase my game to the public at the Southampton University science and engineering fair. I was quite apprehensive about presenting the game for the first time, but I managed to get the game together to play in its prototype version.

Unfortunately for me, the overwhelming majority of people who came in to play the games were children. Not only could I not present a lot of my artwork to kids (since it may be too graphic or unsettling), it was also a pain explaining the nuances of the game to them. Of course, it was a healthy challenge for myself, as I had to continually streamline my explanations to make sure people could understand the game as quickly as possible. Fortunately, most of the people who did play my game were quick to understand, and some of the children were doing a lot better than their parents, which made for a fun experience.

In terms of balancing, I didn’t get to make much progress. The instances in which I got to get to the end-game felt quite balanced, and the Lifeline’s involved didn’t feel too broken by any means, which is good, but since they are early in testing, they will definitely need more. What I lacked in gameplay related data I made up for in leaps and bounds in terms of simply presenting the game. Having to explain the rules repeatedly was a massive challenge since it did get incredibly repetitive and straining, but it was a good challenge to have. I’m happy with how the day went overall, as some of the people who played it seemed to genuinely enjoy it, and I have a newfound knowledge of how to streamline my explanations and better communicate the game.