Gold - Wrapping up Story and Express Mode

In this past week, we focused primarily on polishing up our two core modes.

In Express Mode, we ditched the LLM that was not working. We created new, child-focused scenarios with a level selector UI and created a director mascot to provide instructions on how to play. The director provides hints if the user does not pass the level after a few seconds (ex. "Try relaxing your face completely" for a level looking for a neutral face). Upon answering correctly, the user receives coin(s). There is a shop where users can now try on and buy AR accessories, such as hats, to wear while playing through the levels. Additionally, we implemented difficulty progression as the levels progress by increasing the thresholds necessary to trigger correctness.

For Story Mode, the recurring critique was just how difficult it was to align the AR cursor onto the character in order to show the question. So, we removed the AR cursor and now show the question if the character is on screen. We also implemented the characters list UI, where the user can unlock them after answering the question correctly.

Additionally, the website saw a re-design to be more child-oriented and a trailer was produced to showcase our work on ExpressAR.