Feedback - Hawthorn-Games/ProjectScrapped GitHub Wiki

In this page is collected all major feedback given to us from mentors, players and peers, divided by Build Version.

v0.1.1.0 (First Playable)

User Experience

  • Mentors and players expressed concerns on the Logic Editing UX. A player said: "I feel like as soon as you add a drop of complexity the instruction sheet is extremely long, messy and hard to read"
  • Although we say the player's goal is to "fix" the game and "edit" logic, the actual dynamics ask them to create logic from scratch. This is especially important when framed as a UX issue: giving the player a pre-existent pattern to fix is easier and less of a burden than ask them to create patterns from scratch
  • It's hard to keep track of what is going on in the scene. The mentors expressed the necessity for the player to have a way of seeing the Golems' logic at all times, either through a terminal with all the objects' chips or by using icons that makes their next step clear. An holistic view of the situation would also help with reducing complexity and mental effort from the player.
  • The Logic Editing process could be made more dynamic and immediate. How can we "require one less step" from the player?
  • A mentor thought they had to look at the shadow of Golems to predict where they were and where they would move next. Another player reported of not understanding which tile Golems were standing on and one of the reasons, among others, was their shadow obstructing the grid.

Miscellanea

  • The learning curve in the first playable was too steep, the difficulty jumps between Puzzle Design were perceived as too large
  • A player traced a connection between our game's puzzle structure and Portal, referring to the puzzle being Buttons oriented.
  • A player expressed appreciation towards the camera angle but raised concerns about its practicality in a puzzle game. "I was confused as Golems moved and the camera angle didn't help in the correct reading of what was going on"

v0.1.4.0 (Pre-Alpha)

  • Scope down, there's no need to have the whole game planned out
  • Put care into the few puzzles that we already have
  • Half an hour of gameplay, but new players don't have any idea of what they are doing
  • "I don't know if what I'm doing something wrong or this is broken"
  • Non Player Characters not reacting to puzzles being completed was weird for players
  • No feedback at all to what the player is doing
  • Its hard to understand what the update is for and no one used it
  • Its more of a puzzle game that uses concepts from programming rather than a game that wants to teach programming
  • If we focus on UX and don't add anything else we would be onto a winner
  • Check autonauts, as its similar to ours
  • Hyperluminal is willing to help us test iterations over UX
  • Telling the player what to do is not as powerful. There is "too much text" and less people can get into it the more text is required to play
  • Improve the context of actions
  • The reason why people would be playing our game is because they don't know what they're doing, so we need to help them understand what they're doing
  • Add a timer that tells the player how long is left until Golems make their next action
  • The states are confusing: you should either be in play mode or edit mode
  • Building content is easy, but getting the execution of ideas right is the hard part
  • No one cares about our 3 hour experience, if its crap. Better to have a 15 minute kickass game

Various

  • Even when puzzles are pre-programmed, many players take out the blocks and even add them back in rather than slotting a single code block inbetween lines.
    • This could imply that it takes more effort to understand someone elses code to "re-code" it rather than just scrap the code already there and start from scratch.
    • OR it could imply that we need to try and get the player into the habit of playtesting the puzzle first and pressing play to see where the code has gone wrong to get them used to re-programming.
  • Missing blocking volumes in
    • Large bridge puzzle (can get stuck behind rock or fall into water and not get back)
    • Ruins, at the end gate no blocking volume. Can fall off the map
    • you can get blocked behind the tree next to the first puzzle straight after the non-tutorial puzzle
  • The new cinematic was mentioned to be awkward in the orthographic view (Perphaps too close?)
  • Persistent bug were people would not be able to place code blocks into the editor window and would have close and open it again for it to work.
  • Many players steer off from using if statements and first attempt to complete the puzzle mostly with repeats and standard code blocks
  • Play button highlight is persistently not disappearing for many players for an unknown reason during the tutorial. Does not disappear and is stuck
  • Many players do not notice dormant golems, even on occasions running completely past them
  • Some puzzles intimidate most players just by their layout, steering them away from that certain challenge
  • In Tutorial Zone 2, code block can be picked up without going down the beach
  • Single move code block in the tutorial is confusing player whenever the objective tells them to ''find the move code block''
  • Some players seemed to be unsure if the buttons are golem specific at first but later grasped that they are not.
  • Push/Pull node is not clear - Also the fact that pull also moves golems backwards throws players off.
  • Some players found the blue golem to be looking similar to the green golem with the post process during the tutorial.
  • A tester was not sure for a long time whether golems react to the same code or if you have to program each golem individually.