This week I worked on the physical and digital pieces that will be used to represent the unit in my game. There are 7 units in total, each with a unique design. My goal for this sprint was to find out if the piece designations made sense, and if they would be easily distinguishable. I also asked about keeping the pieces in generally the same color family. I had originally planned on making each piece of each type a different color, in order to help differentiate different pieces from each other. My thought was that this would help the players keep track of which piece was which, especially if they are tracking health without the use of the digital game. I had thought that this would work out well because I plan on having one player control pieces made of wood, and the other player (or the AI) control pieces that are made of acrylic. The acrylic pieces contain more saturated and varied colors than you typically get with natural wood, and often swirl multiple colors into one piece. 

The feedback I received was very helpful. The majority of pieces could be easily distinguished from one another, using their height and shape,  except for the cavalier and the knight. The prototype versions of this had the knight as slightly taller, and it had a small additional bead design towards the bottom, but both pieces had a lance motif that made them difficult to distinguish. The cavalier’s base had been set in epoxy resin  inorder to help differentiate the two, and also because there was a small split in the wood that I was honestly trying to hide. I learned several things about these two pieces. The first is that the Knight needs to be taller and probably thicker than the cavalier, and that it should be the one with the larger resin base, in order to convey the cat that it is more armored and durable. When I asked people about the color, I was told that it would make more sense if I kept the colors for each team the same throughout, because it creates a more distinct split in the teams. Obviously, not all pieces of the same wood look the same, so there will still be some color variation, but it will be more or less out of my hands. I was also told that the man-at-arms piece was a little bit too tall, and that made it difficult to distinguish from the captain piece, so I plan on making it shorter. I also received some feedback about how the pieces felt, and I was told that I should find some way to add extra weight to them, as the fact that they were so light made them feel slightly cheap. It could also greatly help with stability, as it would lower the center of gravity for the taller pieces, making them more difficult to knock over. Overall, this was incredibly helpful for the project.