Nuno: 

This week my colleagues and I finished up on the GDD that we had to deliver a few days ago. Afterwards I immediately started to brainstorm on what to test with the paper prototype, and decided that it would be best to approximate the game to 2D in order to allow it to be tested in a paper prototype, as drawing in 3D would be too difficult and (because I'm not a great artist) would yield poor results. Now that the perspective has been decided there's the problem of what to test in the prototype. The overworld is a no brainer, since 2D has already been decided it is not too tough to make an area for the testee to try out the movement system. Besides the overworld I feel it is also necessary to test how intuitive some puzzle mechanics are, so I'll also be making 2 or 3 landmarks for my prototype. I feel like the inside of the landmarks will not approximate to 2D as well as the overworld section, but it shouldn't be too distant if the puzzles themselves are crafted with this problem in mind.

João:  

Since we had to deliver the GDD on tuesday,  continuing from the previous week , I mostly worked on that.  I interviewed a group of people that I believed would enjoy Project barren since they had played games with similar characteristics to ours.  I asked questions like: What made them enjoy those games, what aspects they did not enjoy and more. For each of them I also did the pitch of our game and asked similar questions. From this interviews I was able to:  define the player personas and among them select some for the focus group.  I also received really useful feedback  for our game which we made us re-think some aspects such as the shape the main player.  Until now we have been visualizing a sphere, however multiple people said that if the main character is a sphere they would less likely pay attention to the story because they would probably not get attached  the  main character at all.   Besides the GDD I also  sketched some ideas that could serve as the paper prototype but I haven't reached a definite result.

Rafa: 
This week we further discussed possible visual styles for the game, and really got inspired by Ana's moodboard. Apart from that we also had a few new ideas for the general game, like making the ending a possible puzzle that could be solved right at the beginning. 
As for the paper prototypes, I discussed with the teacher if I could do a few visual tests, to see what possible players would prefer. I came up with an idea where I would draw a scenery with a landmark, and either change out the scenery or tha landmark, and see what combination and what landmark is more appealing. This way we can quickly test what landmark shilouettes call the player to explore them the most, and in what scenery these would work best. For example, if a high tower works better in a big crater or at the peak of a mountain.

Francisco: 

This week we got a new member on our team, Ana Rocha on the art department. I feel like she'll fit the team really well, as we all quickly got on the same wavelength. She quickly whipped up a mood board with some conceptual ideas from what she had in mind for the game, and it turned out pretty good. So with that, I took to researching the theme of the Four Symbols and how it might connect to our vision of Project Barren. I held back on the paper prototype for this week, as I want to have a clearer idea of the world setting in order to make thematic challenges, both fitting the lore and gameplay mechanics. Since everything will be connected to the world being explored, I want to iron that out first. I am currently still researching about Chinese mythology and astrology and how that might tie in to the environment, as a possibility. Although it is important to say that this theme might not fit the game in the end, but it is an idea worth exploring, as it has a lot of potential.