Game difficulty User testing - UQdeco2800/2021-studio-2 GitHub Wiki
User testing on game difficulty
Session Plan
- Session run by: Minh Tieu
- Feature team name: Team 2
- Number of participants: 4 (aged 18 - 21 some with computer game background and some has minimum gaming background)
Background
This user test was conducted at the end the sprint 4, to test the gameplay and difficulty of level 1 of the game. We wanted to get the view of someone around the age of 18 - 21 a view point on this game difficulty. This game should provide the users a fun experience and hard fun emotions where they gain satisfaction through hour of hard work try to complete the game.
Aims & Objectives
| Aim | Notes |
|---|---|
| To view the user play the first level and give feedback on the experience. | Ask the player to complete a series of tasks, observe their behaviour, and after they have complete the tasks, ask them about the difficulty, what they like and dislike about the game |
Testing Approach
- Explain the backstory of the game
- Let the user explore the game themselves
- Assign them tasks
- Interview the user on their thoughts
Task 1: Getting familiar with the control
Initially, most users quite comfortable with navigation tool. However, quite a number of them found in challenging to attack with with spacebar because the character is so difficult to control and they can't tell which direction the character will attack when pressing spacebar. In addition, some users suggest to have an information page to guide on control mechanism because they did not realise about the special skill [q], dash [tab] and run [shift + direction] without further explanation.
Task 2: Try to defeat an enemy
- User 1 suggests: "Running away from the range type is quite fun and engaging but it so hard when you have to dodge and attack at the same time, you deal so little damage to the boss"
- User 4 suggests: "I like the melee type because you can just spam attack"
Task 3: Explore the maze
- User 2 suggests: "I like exploring the game. When playing game, rather than fighting, I'm more interested in exploring"
- User 4 suggests: "Is there anyway to kill the boss without defeat all enemies because I'm either than from trap or only has 10% left when fighting boss after kill all minions"
Task 4: Complete level 1
- User 1 suggests: "For me, this game is impossible to win"
- User 3 suggests: "You give the boss so many skill, especially when the first level should be introductory level - it should be easy"
Task 5: Complete the game
Unable to complete due to unable to complete previous task
Overall
Based on the users suggestion, it best if the difficulty of the game is reduce at the start and increasing as the game progress. In addition, no users are able to complete level 1 prove this statement
Interview Questions
- How would you describe the difficulty of this game?
- How would you like this game to improve to make it better?
Evaluation Analysis
| Observation | How would you describe the difficulty of this game?? | How would you like this game to improve to make it better? | |
|---|---|---|---|
| User 1 | Instantly die when enter the boss room, really struggle dodging the arrow and attack the enemy | “Probably because I am not a good gamer, but from my point of view, this game is impossible to win." | “You should reduce the enemy attack because is way too high” |
| User 2 | Really struggle dodging the arrow, give up when enter boss room. | “there are too many archers, I hate the one that shoot the fast arrow, way too high damage and difficult to avoid” | “you should distribute the number of enemy per room more logically - difficult but not too much.” |
| User 3 | Easily find the boss room but die after 5 minutes of fight the boss | "The attack is quite predictable, just a bit time consuming to kill the boss" | “You give the first boss way too many skills, it can spawn minions, undefeated if minions alive, teleport, spawn explosion ring, shoot fireball, got melee damage if health reduce below 50%” |
From the user testing, it seemed that the difficulty of the game is too high and not suitable for majority of the people. It might be suitable for gamers, but will disqualify majority of the potential target. Hence, consider reduce the difficulty so people can experiencing the fun when playing this game