Interview outline

The users are given a brief overview of the game, including the game’s setting in Atlantis, the game objective and the game’s challenges (i.e. spawning enemies every night). Screenshots of the game in action were provided and different characters and objects, as well as their purposes, were pointed out. This included the main character, the crystal, the chalice artifact, and the day and night clock. I wanted users to have all the necessary information they would receive from the guidebook and storyline if they were actually playing it so they could provide useful and relevant feedback. Not knowing anything about the game, including how to play it, before answering the questions below could have led to a lot of confusion and irrelevant suggestions. The screenshots used are shown below. The user was then asked to answer the following:

1. The circled character spawns from the water at night like the crab. Based on your brief overview of the game and its objective, what do you believe the circled character to be? Describe your thoughts about this character.
2. Based on what you believe this character to be, can you please provide some feedback on its design, both positive and negative?
3. The circled character is actually meant to be the final boss enemy and is supposed to be more dangerous and powerful than all other enemies, including the crab. Knowing this, what feedback do you have on the character’s design now?
4. Finally, what animations would you add to this character to fit the theme of the boss enemy?

Raw notes written from user interviews:

1. The circled character spawns from the water at night like the crab on the 3rd night. Based on your brief overview of the game and its objective, what do you believe the circled character to be? Describe your thoughts about this character.

User 1:

• Definitely feels like an enemy character because it comes out at night and has dragon/devil features with the horns and wings
• Definitely needs to be enlarged because right now you have to concentrate on the screen to see exactly what it is - it should be immediately obvious like the crab.
• Upon closer inspection looks like half-dragon, half human devil like creature, holding a golden trident and with a spiky, dangerous looking tail. The human head looks particularly angry.
• Character should also be enlarged because based on what they think it is (i.e. dragon/human devil), it doesn’t make sense that it’s smaller than a crab?
• When they concentrate on it, they can see how it is intimidating, but because of its size they’re not really scared of it - particularly because their axe weapon as the main character is nearly the same size as the enemy

User 2:

• Considering it comes out at night, it’s an enemy
• Based on relative size, doesn’t look hard to beat and the main character has a weapon - weapon may increase ease of defeat
• See trident, a fishtail, 2 heads (2 heads hard to see so it needs to be blown up), can see wings
• Make the enemy bigger so it seems more menacing and harder to defeat

2. Based on what you believe this character to be, can you please provide some feedback on its design, both positive and negative?

User 1:

• Design wise, they like how it’s really original and feels like it fits the theme of “ancient Greece” with the trident and devil human head as it feels like it could be an evil Greek God maybe
• Definitely needs to be increased in size (because of justifications made earlier) → but also looking at it more closely now and comparing the size of the human head on the enemy vs the main character, the proportions are way off
• The human head also feels like it blends in a little with the land (assumes it’s sandy tiles). Would suggest adding a darker outline or this problem may be fixed when it’s increased in size anyway.
• The trident looks rather pure/godly at the moment → make it look more evil because in ancient Greece, they would associate gold accessories/weapons with Greek God characters… Although they think that maybe you did this on purpose to make it clear that this once was a God-like figure but is now evil?
• They’re not sure if there’s meant to be 4 legs, but can only see 2 clearly? It feels like there should be 4 legs so make it clearer that there are

User 2:

• Positive: they particularly like the 2 different heads and the trident - these features make the character look very evil
• Negative: It’s way too small - less intimidating than it could be so definitely increase the size
• Make the face a lot angrier / make the expressions clearer on the face - this may be amended when the enemy is increased in size

3. The circled character is actually meant to be the final boss enemy and is supposed to be more dangerous and powerful than all other enemies, including the crab. Knowing this, what feedback do you have on the character’s design now?

User 1:

• They don’t think the actual design needs to be changed because without taking the scale into account, it seems like a character that would have more power than a crab now that they think about it
• However it’s just the size that throws them off. It definitely needs to be larger. They would recommend making it at LEAST as big as the main character, if not larger. The trident should be at least as big as the main character’s axe they believe.

User 2:

• The crab seems like more of a boss enemy than the circled character because of how clear it is to see and its evidently angry expressions
• Making the boss enemy bigger and angrier would help show them that its the most powerful enemy
• The actual design looks like a boss, but not implemented well
• Almost looks cute at the moment because of its size compared to the crab
• Adding a visual notable special power would help as well because they feel like the boss enemy should have a distinct power. For example, they think flames or fireballs would fit well because of the dragon element

4. Finally, what animations would you add to this character to fit the theme of the boss enemy?

User 1:

• Definitely something with flames to make it seem more evil → potentially flames coming off the trident
• Also if it is meant to be half dragon, smoke and flames coming out of its nose and mouth makes sense
• Maybe the spiky tails could move in and out and zap power each time the 2 tails touch as well

User 2:

• Fire or smoke coming from its mouth because they associate fire and smoke with danger
• Flapping its wings as it walked as this would help assert its presence they believe
• Eyebrows looking angrier
• Needs to be bigger than main character