Methodology

Overview ​

Any additional weapons and items that the player can interact with should be exposed to users to gauge their opinions and receptions to them. This allows us to achieve better integration with existing designs and create a more uniform design style to the game, enhancing the users experience. As such, user feedback will be requested for each new weapon design, specifically focusing on how well it fits into the art style of the game, the setting and genre of the game and the other pre-existing items and weapons. This can also include feedback for pre-existing designs if there are noticeable differences between the older and newer assets or if changes in design direction have negatively impacted untouched assets.

Justification

The main reasoning behind user design testing is to better integrate new assets into the existing design framework. This was brought up in the studio sessions as another team commented on how well the weapon designs would integrate into the game as a critique, suggesting and prompting further testing. As the game is still a work in progress, it lacks a signular genre/setting that assets can be modelled against. As such, it is easy to create new assets that, although visually interesting and high quality, do not fit within the setting. Without this additional testing, the weapons designs may be left in an inconsitent state, with the design direction differing from the rest of the game environment, creating noticeably unpleasent design differences.

Testing Process

User Brief

The basic aim of this user test is to gauge their opinions and feedback on the visual elements of the ingame player weapons. This is both in relation to the overall game and in comparison with eachother. As such, most of the tasks are more passive question and response orienteated to get better feedback.

Weapon Designs

Pre-existing Designs:

Sword:

Dagger:

Axe:

New Weapon Designs:

Katana:

Dual Daggers:

Bloody Axe:

User Tasks

1. The user will be shown each of the 6 different individual weapon sprites
2. The full set of questions will be asked relating to the sprites

Questionnaire

1. Rank the 6 weapon designs from best ingame (i.e. the weapon you think would be the best ingame) to the worst, with 6 being best.
2. Categorise the 6 different weapons into distinct groups
3. Do any of the weapons feel out of place?

Testing

Participant #1: Significant observations and feedback

1. Ranked them (Best to worst) Bloody Axe, Katana, Dual Daggers, Axe, Sword and then Dagger.
2. Grouped Bloody Axe and Axe together as they were both long range, heavy and axe type weapons. Dual Daggers and Katana as they are both eastern-influenced, 'ninja' weapons. Lastly, Sword and Dagger as they found them boring and generic weapons.
3. Found all the sprites worked well as weapons, really liked the Katana.

Participant #2: Significant observations and feedback

1. Ranked them (Best to worst) Bloody Axe, Dual Daggers, Axe, Katana, Sword and then Dagger.
2. Grouped Bloody Axe and Axe together as they were both long range, heavy and axe type weapons. Dual Daggers and Katana as they are both two-handed, sharp weapons. Lastly, Sword and Dagger as they are both one-handed sharp weapons.
3. As much as they liked the different sprites (particularly the Bloody Axe), couldn't really see how they could be logically in the game, why the player would be using or how they would get them. Suggets changing the new sprites.

Participant #3: Significant observations and feedback

1. Ranked them (Best to worst) Bloody Axe, Katana, Dual Daggers, Axe, Sword and then Dagger.
2. Grouped Bloody Axe, Axe and Katana as they are all heavy damage, slow attack speed, big two-handed weapons. Then Dual Daggers, Sword and Dagger as they are smaller, low attack damage, high attack speed, one-handed weapons (in the sense that each individual weapon only needs one hand i.e. the individual daggers in the dual daggers only need one hand each).
3. While they liked all the weapons, they found that most of them (Dual Daggers, Katana, Bloody Axe and Sword) didn't fit with the theme of a post-apocalyptic game and either suggested changing those sprites or including more fantasy elements in the game. Found the Bloody Axe looked too detailed for the level of pixel graphics in the game.

Participant #4: Significant observations and feedback

1. Ranked them (Best to worst) Bloody Axe, Axe, Katana, Dual Daggers, Sword and then Dagger.
2. Grouped Bloody Axe, Axe and Katana as they are axes. Then Dual Daggers and Dagger as they are daggers. Finally, Sword and Katana as they are sword-type weapons.
3. Really liked the Bloody Axe although thought that generally, the 3 new weapons didn't really fit with the base weapons.

Evaluation of Results

Common Issues & General Options for improvement:

The general concensus is that, although the new sprites look good and work well as weapons and upgrades to the base weapons, they don't fit within the setting of the game. It was also noted that the Bloody Axe might be a bit too detailed for the current quality of assets, although this is a minor point.

Another thing to consider is the sword, as it was mentioned by one user that the sword does not fit with the setting. As such, in the next user tests, more emphasis should be placed on the sword comparisons to determine if it works well in the setting.

Currently Actionable Improvements:

Recommendation based on this is to create new sprites for the weapons that are more 'modern' or 'realistic'.

Suggestions: Bloody Axe -> Sledgehammer, hammer, some other axe (i.e. hunting axe), makeshift heavy weapon Katana -> Crowbar, Baseball bat, Tire Iron, Plank of wood (would have to swap with sword in terms of upgrades), Bat/Plank with nails in it, golf club Dual Daggers -> Hunting Knife, Kitchen Knife, Machete, Dual Knives, Cleaver, Tomahawk Axe, Tactical Knife

Evaluation of Methods

Thanks to this iterative user testing, we were able to properly identify consistency issues with the current designs in time to adapt and change the weapons before serious work was put into them. If this tested was conducted after the animations were completed, there would have be a significant issue in choosing whether to keep the completed assets and compromise the design consistency or redirect time from other tasks to remake the weapons, forcing the removal or cutting of other important tasks. Now however, we can make quick iterative changes without jeopardizing other elements.