#assignment 3 playtesting

For the playtesting of our Assignment 3 game, I invited two friends to try out the current version and provide feedback based on their gameplay experience. Overall, both players responded very positively to the game’s design and creative concept. They found the visual theme engaging and were particularly impressed by the highway setting combined with obstacles, which added a sense of tension and immersion during gameplay.

During the session, both players reported being quickly drawn into the experience. The intuitive controls made the game easy to pick up, and they were able to grasp the gameplay mechanics almost immediately. The one-enemy-car-at-a-time system was effective in maintaining focus and challenge without overwhelming new players. This simplicity in interaction allowed them to stay immersed in the gameplay flow.

However, one of the most notable pieces of feedback was a desire for increased variety and excitement in the form of additional obstacles. Players suggested that the experience could be even more thrilling if sudden surprises—such as wild animals or fast-moving hazards—were introduced. These elements could elevate the game’s intensity and make each round feel more unpredictable and exhilarating.

In terms of usability, there were no major issues encountered. Movement and collision detection worked smoothly, and the enemy car system functioned as intended. The players felt that the game was well-balanced and did not require a steep learning curve.

In conclusion, the playtesting session validated the core mechanics and confirmed that the game is both accessible and enjoyable. The feedback emphasized the strength of the current system while also inspiring ideas for future enhancements, such as dynamic obstacles or animated threats, to further enrich the player experience.

Playtest Preparation

The team collectively prepared a script, questionnaire, and survey to facilitate fair and accurate playtesting sessions. Our goal was to efficiently and sufficiently gather the most useful data to later interpret and thus use to improve our game.

Some of the playtesting resources themselves (namely prototype and survey) were also iterated as part of the playtesting preparation. This would not compromise any of the results as each prototype version will have a respective survey version that most accurately reflects the new iterations.

Some of the resources created/iterated to facilitate playtesting.

Post-Playtesting

Fullerton (2018) advocates for frequent and early playtesting to ensure that the M2M gameplay is developing in the correct direction and to identify unexpected issues that are unforeseen to the developers. It is important to receive feedback from eyes that haven't been pouring over the design; objective perspectives are also crucial to make improvements to our game (Fullerton, 2018).

For structure and efficiency, we also discussed our approach to post-playtesting processes.

After each playtesting session, whether informal or structured, we ensured to keep a record of the results along with a brief analysis of issues and "where to next?" discussions.

This involved analysing the results and then categorising issues by severity and type. This helped decide who would be responsible for managing the issue and also helped with tracking all issues and bugs collectively. Moreover, "managing" the issue involves analysing the respective data by identifying trends, reflecting on design, considering potential factors/reasons for the issue, and brainstorming solutions.

All of the above enables us to safely and effectively prioritise certain implementations for the next prototype as the results inform the direction of development. Reflecting on the results lets us continuously improve our game.

Additionally, please note that the extent to and formality of this documentation depended on the type of playtesting conducted, i.e., light informal playtesting = light informal documentation. For the minimum 5 playtests; however, we will endeavour to have very formal and structured playtesting + documentation.

Week 11 Playtesting

Light and informal playtesting with the very first build.

Current state of game in week 11.

Some of the findings from week 11 playtesting.

Thanks for reading!

We try to let our friends try our game demo and let them honestly give their feelings. The feedback everyone gives us is relatively bad. We pick out some reasons, for example:

The way the characters move is somewhat counter-intuitive and unnatural

Character's attack interval is too short

The character's health is only 1, and it is always difficult for players to pass the final Boss level

The performance didn't quite meet our expectations. (cutscene)

We conducted our play testing session with another group within the workshop in week 11. For this playtesting session, we took the informal approach and didn’t use any script when it came to asking questions about the player’s experience. The data retrieved from the playtesting session provided us an insight into the shortcomings of the prototype and what aspects to improve on for the next development iteration.

The players found it difficult to shoot the enemies which my team member followed up with the question “why?” and their reasoning for their experience was the enemy were blending into the background which made it somewhat difficult to spot and keep track of the enemy.  One of the suggestions made by all the players from the other group was to include a mini-instruction manual at the beginning of the game to guide players in using the ace pilot as most of them didn’t know they could use the up and down key to maneuver in the game.

 Recommendations from players:

·         Add a live system

·         Change the pattern of the enemy due

·         Add a small delay to the bullet because rapid fire is a bit too overpowered.

·         Randomize enemy Attacks as it is easy to read the next move made by the enemy.

·         Change the player’s bullet color to blue to differentiate from the enemy bullets due to the confusions caused numerous bullets on the screen

After completing the KnightFall, it's time to playtest it. Our group members discussed which participants to get for the test and listed some basic questions to ask the testers and survey them. In the end we got five people to ask questions that would give us enough insight into the five testers in terms of their gaming preferences. Firstly without being told anything about the game we let the playtesters do the first round of basic testing and after completing the first round we were told of some obvious and basic bugs for us to fix. After fixing some bugs and refining the game, the five playtesters were given a second round of playtesting and finally given a detailed playtesting questionnaire to fill out in order to find out more about the game.

The development of the game has been concerning as most of the goals that we have planned to complete have not been implemented into the game due to time restrains and other assignments.

Discord was our main source of communication and we would meet up once in person at the workshop on Thursday 4:00-6:00. However, only Yuki and I were able to come to the classes every week whilst Liam had to miss out on a couple of classes and Dave not showing up to any of the classes at all. This did prove to be an issue as this did bring a lot of miscommunication errors.

For example, we had all come to an agreement that there will be 1 dragon boss at the end of the level, however there were 3 dragons made instead. The concept art was used as the final art style which lead to a detailed dragon that was different that we had envisioned for the final dragon boss. This was resolved by designing a new dragon only consisting of the dragon head.

During the playtesting stage, the game that we had developed was in an unfinished state unfortunately so we couldn't show off the games selling points to the fullest extent. The boss wasn't working so we only had the platformer and throwing attack to show off to the play testers. Only Yuki and I were able to go to the playtesting sessions to interview the play testers so I was in charge of the script, making the survey and talking to the play testers during the play testing session while Yuki took notes.