Initial Testing

I asked several different users to play the game. I conducted a thinking aloud assessment as they played.

After the game, I then asked them different questions about the elf enemies, for example, how many different types of elves there were and how they were differentiated.

This lead to some very concerning feedback whereby 3/4 testers who died before they could reach the boss, stated that there was only one minion animation type they could remember in the follow up interview. The other tester stated that there were two animations - referring to the melee and ranged elf animations.

In reality there are 5 animations: melee, ranged, assassin, guard and the boss.

It is essential that users are able to easily distinguish between the different animation types so that they can strategize within the game accordingly. Therefore, I believe that I will need to make considerable amendments to the character designs to differentiate them.

It was also noted during the thinking aloud assessment that the elves look a little bit out of place in the game; they are much taller and skinnier than the player. They also have a purple colour scheme (use cold colours) whereas in the game mostly warm colours are used. As dark elves are traditionally purple and elves are characterised as tall and lean, it is believed that the designs for the elves make sense for the character type.

In hindsight, it would be preferable to have chosen a different minion type that better fit in with the theme. However, a considerable amount of time has been invested into designing the elves across the Semester; a commitment to this character types has been made and should be maintained.

During the thinking aloud assessment it was also noted that the game was incredibly difficult (the player was killed off after only 10-20 seconds approximately of game play). When asked to elaborate on why the game was so hard, a tester commented that there were too many enemies attacking at once.

Our team will need to consider in further depth how to reduce the difficulty of the game (perhaps by introducing the elf sprites gradually or spawning only one of each elf type).

On a second play of the game (where I reduced the number of enemies that spawned on the screen on the time by commenting out code), one used noted that the melee elf animation looked "a bit weird." They said that they did not notice the knife they were holding at first (making the weapon larger may be beneficial). Or perhaps implementing a long sword instead of a knife as a weapon, may be more visible.

Final Testing

I conducted the same test (with different users) after I added in all of my new texture atlases. When asked to identify how many elf animations there were, users had much better estimates. Most said 3 or 4 (not including the boss). I believe that this is a reasonable estimate and definite improvement on my last test, considering that the users were not asked to count the number of elf sprites before they started playing the game. They were able to distinguish what animations there were while playing and recall them afterwards.