Underwater — Pre-Alpha Test Report

Testers Invited

Survey Responses

Successfully Joined

Blocked (Login)

Participant Overview

Tester	Machine	GPU	Performance Attended	Status
S.M.	AMD Ryzen 7 9700X / Win 11	RTX 4060 (8 GB)	Friday 22nd	Joined
D.S.	Intel i9-11900H / Win 11	RTX 3080 (10 GB)	Friday 22nd	Joined
R.M.	AMD Ryzen 7 7435HS / Win 11	RTX 4050 Laptop (6 GB)	Both (22nd + earlier)	Joined + GPU crash in 2nd session
M.S.	—	—	Both	Joined (in person with another tester)
R.	Core Ultra 9 275HX → i5-13420H / Win 11	RTX 4050 Laptop (6 GB)	—	Blocked (EOS login)

Tester Feedback

Survey responses collected via Google Form after the playtest. Four testers submitted feedback.

Ratings at a Glance

Question	S.M.	D.S.	R.M.	M.S.
Discord effectiveness	Very Good	Very Good	Good *	Good
Avatar (fish) control	Difficult	Neither	Neither **	Difficult
Navigation	Neither	Neither	Easy	Neither ***
Could hear music	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Audio levels	Just right	Too low	Too low	Too low / no volume control
Saw performer in submarine	Not sure	Not sure (saw hand wave)	Yes	No
3D performer images stable	No	Couldn't see clearly	Stable, could be clearer	Not aware of them

* R.M.: "Discord is great for this, though it works best with people who already use Discord."
** R.M. suggested a toggle for mouse up/down configuration.
*** M.S.: coral sections were easier to navigate; disorienting when losing sight of the performer.

Individual Responses

S.M. 22 May 2026, 19:48 • Friday 22nd performance

Overall

Fun to explore, struggled with fish control. Couldn't catch up with the submarine.

Standout moment

The art in the coral reef section. Graphics, movement, and interactive audio were impressive.

Wanted more of

More narrative — the poetic narration was a nice surprise and made the experience whimsical and mysterious.

Technical notes

Environment needs complex collisions (can go under mesh but not through due to simple collision). Light beam from fish needs an on/off toggle or intensity fix.

D.S. 22 May 2026, 20:56 • Friday 22nd performance

Overall

Enjoyed the experience. Navigation was difficult but got the hang of it with practice. For non-gamers it could be challenging.

Standout moment

Coral moving with the music. Long sweeps across the reef were particularly serene.

Difficulty

Performer moved at pace, so hard to keep up sometimes. Controls take practice.

R.M. 22 May 2026, 21:15 • Both performances • Digital Coordinator

Overall

Love the environment, great fun to explore. Audio and visual design is amazing. The way fish audio/whale song integrates with the music is beautiful and well produced.

Standout moment

The interactive element elevates the experience. Suggested the environment could be even more interactive.

Controls

Takes getting used to. Suggested a toggle for mouse up/down configuration.

M.S. 23 May 2026, 10:15 • Both performances • Attended with another tester in the room

Overall

Novel experience, enjoyed being a fish and navigating the underwater world. Purpose of the game and the fish wasn't clear.

Key insight

Experience was improved by being in a room with another tester. If done alone, would have felt quite disconnected.

Wanted more of

More interaction and playfulness between fish and with the performer. Feels a little disconnected.

Dual perspective

Has experienced both as a fish and as an audience member. As audience — no sense of the game. As a fish — no sense of the performance. Fish definitely enrich the audience experience.

Recurring Themes

4/4 Music is a highlight — all testers heard it clearly and praised the audio design. Audio levels were too low for 3 of 4 testers; an in-app volume control was requested.
3/4 Fish controls need improvement — described as difficult or unintuitive. Suggestions include: mouse Y-axis toggle, clearer key instructions, and better feedback for speed boost.
3/4 Performer visibility is inconsistent — only R.M. clearly saw the performer in the submarine. Others were unsure or couldn't see them. 3D performer images were not stable or not noticed.
3/4 Desire for more connection — testers wanted more narrative, more interaction between fish, and more connection to the performer. M.S. noted the experience felt disconnected when alone.
2/4 Coral environments are the best part — testers cited the coral reef atmosphere, interactive music, and self-paced exploration as standout elements.
2/4 Discord communication works well — rated Very Good or Good by all. R.M. noted it works best for existing Discord users.

Screenshots from Testing

S.M.

Underwater view — S.M.

Environment — S.M.

Close-up view — S.M.

Wide shot — S.M.

D.S.

Underwater environment — D.S.

Coral reef environment — D.S.

R.M.

Underwater scene — R.M.

Environment detail — R.M.

Wide shot — R.M.

M.S.

Environment view — M.S.

Scene detail — M.S.

NotoSans font and UltraWideConfig.uwcfg referenced but not included in the build. Add to packaging rules. Replace hard-coded D:/Pirates/ path.

Technical Report

R. — Failure Diagnosis

Root Cause: Epic Online Services (EOS) Authentication Loop

R. attempted to join across two different laptops over two days (May 18–19) with a total of 11 sessions. The application launched and rendered correctly on both machines, but she could never complete the login flow required to join a multiplayer session.

Machine Timeline

Machine A: Core Ultra 9 275HX (loginid: 130c28d4...)

May 18, 23:29 — Session 1: 21 seconds, clean exit

May 18, 23:29 — Session 2: 24 seconds, clean exit

May 18, 23:31 — Session 3: 38 seconds, clean exit

May 18, 23:31 — Session 4: 65 seconds, clean exit

May 18, 23:33 — Session 5: 17 seconds, clean exit

May 18, 23:41 — Session 6: Got past login! EOS presence set to Online, Stomp messaging connected. Still ended after ~32 seconds.

May 18, 23:43 — Session 7: ~2 minutes, clean exit

May 19, 00:19 — Session 8: Got past login again! EOS presence Online. Ended after ~32 seconds.

May 19, 00:25 — Session 9: 23 seconds, clean exit

May 19, 02:47 — Session 10: 78 seconds, clean exit

Machine B: i5-13420H + RTX 4050 Laptop GPU (loginid: 3d604a60...)

May 19, 17:37 — Session 11: 90 seconds, stuck at EOS login, never authenticated

What the Logs Show

On every session, the same pattern repeats:

EOS Authentication Pending — Repeated Every 10 Seconds

LogEIKSDK: Warning: LogEOS: Error response received from backend.
  ServiceName=[OAuth], OperationName=[TokenGrantv2]
  HttpStatus=[400]
  ErrorCode=[errors.com.epicgames.account.oauth.authorization_pending]
  NumericErrorCode=[1012]
  ErrorMessage=[The authorization server request is still pending as the end
  user has yet to visit and enter the verification code.]

This error means the app attempted a browser-based OAuth flow (likely opening a system browser window for Epic Games account login), but the verification was never completed. Possible reasons:

The browser window did not open automatically, or was hidden behind other windows
Firewall or security software blocked the outbound authentication request
The default browser was not configured or unavailable
The EOS dev-sandbox deployment was not provisioned for R.'s Epic account ID
On the sessions where she did authenticate (23:41, 00:19), the session terminated before she could join the multiplayer lobby — possibly the group test had already ended or she closed the app

Key Observation: No Application Crash

All 11 of R.'s sessions ended with a clean shutdown (LogExit: Preparing to exit.). The Unreal Engine 5.7 renderer initialised correctly on both laptops, D3D12 selected the RTX 4050 as the primary adapter, and the window rendered at 1280x720. This confirms the build itself was stable — the blocker was entirely in the online services authentication layer.

Engine & Build Issues from Log Analysis

GPU Crash — R.M. (RTX 4050 Laptop GPU)

After the main session, R.M. experienced a GPU crash 27 seconds into a follow-up session. Crash type: GPUCrash with error "GPU Crash dump Triggered". The crash occurred during a Nanite visibility buffer rendering pass (Nanite::VisBuffer → Nanite::DrawGeometry) on Frame 1189.

CrashGUID: UECC-Windows-CECEC39245621B2362C53595BBEB9674_0001
CrashType: GPUCrash
SecondsSinceStart: 27
PrimaryGPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU

Note: R.M.'s main session was run with aggressive performance flags (-windowed -ResX=1280 -ResY=720 -slnodlssg -slnoreflex t.MaxFPS 30, Lumen/Nanite/VSM disabled). The crash session may have been launched without these flags, exposing the RTX 4050 to the full rendering pipeline which it could not sustain.

Missing Font Asset: NotoSans

LogStreaming: Warning: LoadPackage: SkipPackage: /Game/UI/Foundation/Fonts/NotoSans
The package to load does not exist on disk or in the loader

UI text elements referencing the NotoSans font will render with a fallback font. Affects all users.

Missing Ultra-Wide Configuration File

LogTemp: Warning: [CompositeCamera] Failed to load ultra-wide config
'D:/Pirates/WindowsClient/Underwater/UltraWideConfig.uwcfg'

The ultra-wide camera configuration file was not included in the build package. The app references a hard-coded path from the development machine.

CommonUI Game Viewport Client Warning

LogUIActionRouter: Error: Using CommonUI without a CommonGameViewportClient
derived game viewport client. CommonUI Input routing will not function correctly.

Input routing through CommonUI may not work correctly. This affects all users and could cause UI navigation issues with gamepad/keyboard.

Render Target Pool Exceeding Budget

LogRenderTargetPool: Warning: r.RenderTargetPoolMin exceeded 1389/400 MB
(ok in editor, bad on fixed memory platform)

Render target memory usage was 3.5x the configured minimum pool size. On GPUs with limited VRAM (like the RTX 4050's 6 GB), this contributed to instability.

DLSS/Streamline Model Cache Misses

LogStreamlineAPI: Feature dlss failed to load from cache
LogStreamlineAPI: Feature dlssg failed to load from cache
LogStreamlineAPI: error: no matching adapter found

NVIDIA DLSS/Streamline models were not pre-cached on R.'s machine. The app falls back gracefully, but these users will not benefit from DLSS upscaling or frame generation.

Epic Online Services — Minor Warnings (All Users)

LogEIK: FOnlineSubsystemEOS: failed to init EOS platform, couldn't get
anti cheat client handle. (Expected if not using Easy Anti Cheat)
LogOnline: Warning: EOS: Login(0) failed with EOS result code (EOS_InvalidAuth)

These are expected for first-time launches without cached credentials. All joining testers eventually authenticated successfully after the browser-based flow.

Technical Appendix

Build Information

Engine	Unreal Engine 5.7.0 (UE5-CL-0)
Configuration	Development
Platform	WindowsClient (x64)
RHI	DirectX 12 (SM6, Feature Level 12_2)
Multiplayer	Epic Online Services (EOS) + EIK
Upscaling	NVIDIA DLSS / Streamline 8.3.0 (SL 2.9.0)
Rendering	Lumen, Nanite, Virtual Shadow Maps, Volumetric Fog, Niagara

Test Environment

Component	Minimum Observed	Recommended for Pre-Alpha
OS	Windows 11 25H2 (10.0.26200)	Windows 10/11 22H2+
CPU	Intel i5-13420H	Intel i7-10700 / AMD Ryzen 5 3600
GPU	RTX 4050 Laptop (6 GB VRAM)	RTX 3060 / RX 6600 (8 GB VRAM)
RAM	16 GB	16 GB