Goal

The goal of this user testing was to collect feedback from our target audience on the design of the applied animations and to ensure that the character’s movements help deliver the game’s emotional goal: “After players successfully reach the final stage of the game and the final boss surfaces out of the water, players will feel nervous and [increased] pressure as the fate of Atlantis will entirely depend on whether they successfully defend against the final boss.” Specifically, we want to ensure that users clearly associate power, danger and threat with this character now that animations have also been added.

Interview process:

Interviews were used to collect open-ended feedback from users on the design of the applied animations. Throughout all answers, the probing question “why” was used to further clarify and understand their feedback. Before each interview, users were given a necessary overview of the game setting and aim; however, unlike our previous round of interviews for the boss enemy animations, users were not shown screen recordings / screenshots of the animation inside the game. As found in the previous interviews, users were able to quickly identify that the character was an enemy because it spawns at night. However, the goal of this interview was to gather feedback on how closely users associate danger, threat and power with the animated enemy itself. Therefore, to ensure results were unbiased, users were shown a separate gif of the pixelated animation on a loop, outside of the game. This way users would not feel pressured to say that the character looks like an enemy simply because they think it's supposed to be one.

Raw notes from interviews:

1. Looking at the animation, what role would you expect this character to play in our previously described game and why?

User 1:

• Certainly an evil character because of the combination of animals used to make the character. Looks like part of a dragon, an evil human head/maybe a devil and its tail is also very sharp and spiky, making it look dangerous.
• Looks very scary because it’s “throwing flames” and quite dark coloured → they associate flames with danger and associate dark red and grey with evilness

User 2:

• Believes it would be a character that flies into the game screen either when something bad happens or to try and create something bad (e.g. by attacking or destroying something)
• Not much of a gamer but believes it would have a similar purpose to Bowser in Super Mario Bros on the Wii, where he flies in and out of the screen when you’re inside the castle on the final level and creates utter havoc (at least that’s her memory of it) - the “flapping wings” and the fact its breathing fire makes her believe that it would have the power to do that
• Pretty much an evil character that only appears at specific moments (not like an ordinary obstacle or villain who may appear more frequently)

2. Please provide any further insights, feedback or improvements for the character

User 1:

• Seems a little odd that the legs are not moving if the character’s wings are moving → he doesn’t imagine that the character would be standing still while flapping its wings and breathing fire
• Animate the trident so the character stabs objects, buildings and attacks other characters → believes it would make it even scarier (if that’s the intent)

User 2:

• Does not have any additional comments or improvements → believes that the actual animation of the character is very "seamless" as is and the design of the character appears very intimidating and scary
• Assumes it’s a very evil character