00:04There we go.
00:05We are now approaching the most important phase of development so far,
00:08where we will define how Hellblade will look, feel and play.
00:17The goal is to create a small section of the game, about 10-15 minutes in length,
00:22to a near finish standard.
00:23This is what we call a vertical slice and it's something that we've done for all of our games,
00:28ma questa volta le stagioni sono più altissime.
00:30Il modello dell'independente AAA è un'esperimento
00:33per vedere se possiamo fare una AAA qualità
00:35ma con un gruppo indi size team e budget
00:38e la verticale slice
00:39sarà una testa cruciale per questo modello.
00:42So far we've worked out new ways
00:44di lavorare per ogni parte del gioco.
00:46Abbiamo un test scene in il nostro studio
00:48Abbiamo la base della combatta in cui è riuscita
00:51Abbiamo un'idea di un'idea
00:52di un'idea di un'idea di un mondo in Helheim
00:54Un'idea di Andi La Plaga
00:59Porgendo gli Dentri
01:00E facendo da un'idea di un'idea di un'idea di un'idea di modello
01:01Il movimento è un rapporto di un'idea di un'idea di un'idea di un'idea di un'idea
01:03di un'idea di un movimento
01:03Dan ha lavorato in un tipo di environment
01:05in un'idea di un'idea, sette in outcevolto di Helheim
01:09Balasch took a test scene
01:10, in l'idea che avendo nel mio dev diario
01:12e ho accaduto nella settimana
01:15Inso importante
01:16E a fare parte di storia
01:17pergosto di side U.K. and London
01:21Cattivi, di un'idea di un'idea di un'idea di e dei dialogi
01:23per tutti i ritri
01:28With that we started introducing some non-combat based gameplay into the level
01:33based on our ideas for story and altered perception.
01:37We had a new character design which we modelled and textured and animated
01:41and in tandem the coders and gameplay team were working on the AI systems
01:46to make sure that it's fun to play against.
01:48After 10 weeks of work we had a level in place that could be played from start to finish
01:53but this is just the beginning of the process.
01:55It's very difficult to judge your own work, you're too close to the project so we're
02:00too biased to know whether what we create is going to work for other players.
02:06We have a small room set up in the studio equipped with a mic and a camera.
02:10A couple of people from another team were invited to play the game, while the Hellblade team
02:14sat in another room and watched.
02:16The session didn't go smooth, in fact it was best described as a disaster.
02:20The combat was really messy and unclear in the new setting and the AI was really frustrating for players.
02:28The level was described as too small, too linear, too awkward to navigate and yet despite this people
02:34were still getting lost.
02:36Senua herself felt very flat and unconnected with the world, just not believable.
02:42The team were despondent as the reality of the session hit home.
02:45We'd failed to create the experience that we've been looking for.
02:49But you have to start at rock bottom before you can even attempt to reach for the top.
02:53In my experience it usually takes about three goes to make something work and five to make it good.
03:00The team gathered and made notes on issues and improvements that we wanted to make.
03:03We made a big list and got back to work.
03:07To fix the layout problems we made the level a lot less linear, expanded it, opened it up
03:12and dressed it so it helped guide the player without them really being aware of it.
03:17Jeff, our new character artist, joined at this point and he started by creating a new enemy variant
03:23to add more diversity to the combat.
03:26To make Senua feel more believable we added a system of partial animation so that she could
03:32physically react and portray the mood that she's in.
03:36To make the combat feel very clear to the player we animated all of the enemy attacks from scratch
03:41and we also gave different visual and sound effects for every single type of attack in the game.
03:49Four weeks later we were pretty confident that we'd addressed most of the issues so we ran another playtest.
04:00As we watched the playtest session the game pretty quickly unraveled before our eyes.
04:06Now it wasn't as bad as the last time so at least we knew we were going in the right
04:10direction
04:11but it was clear we still had a lot of work to do.
04:14Sony at this point invited us to get the game into the hands of journalists at a pre-E3 event
04:19called
04:20Judges Day. The deadline for this meant that we only had two weeks to get the vertical slice into shape.
04:25and so we created another massive list but with only two weeks left it was looking pretty tight at this
04:31point.
04:33The initial vertical slice took 10 weeks to put together.
04:36The second pass took four weeks and the third two weeks.
04:45What we've learned creating the vertical slice
04:48has given us confidence to face the next set of challenges in development.
04:53That's what the true value of the vertical slice is. It's not really necessarily the end result
04:58but it is the setbacks. Learning through repeated failure to find the heart of what you're searching for.
05:13The final playtest of the vertical slice will be in the hands of the journalists at Judges Day.
05:18We'll be presenting the game behind closed doors and we'll find out if our work has paid off.
05:23Regardless, we'll be sharing the highlights of the vertical slice before E3.
05:30The final playtest of the vertical slice will be in the hands of the vertical slice.
05:36The final playtest of the vertical slice will be in the hands of the vertical slice.
05:43The second playtest of the vertical piece
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