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Overview

Due to the change of making the game into a 2 level game, revisions of how the weapons and debuff/buff will be categorised (categorised in the sense what levels the weapons belong to) and their amount.

User Evaluation Session Plan

• Session run by (Name): @PurrplePandaa, @NishaVashist0 and @madi-feddema
• Studio and game name: Studio 2, Atlantis Sink
• Feature team name: Weaponizers
• Location of Testing: Google Forms
• Number of Participants: 5 - 15 people/ testing plan

Background

In Sprint one icons were created for the buffs, which were meant to the base we had planned to work off to create the buffs themsleves. This is no longer the plan, as user testing needs to be conducted to create the buff themsleves, and in turn changing the icons for the buff as well. The reasoning behind this is due to the major gameplay changes made and the knoweldge learnt in course content within the past sprint, particullary the strong link between continous user testing and a more user centric game users tests.

At this point of stage, we now want to attain a better understanding into the different colour schemes associated with the auras that we are going to implement into the game. As such, we plan to ask questions primarily regarding to the aesthetics of the buffs as well as whether the buffs should be represented around the player to attain a more visually pleasing image. Initial research was completed prior to this user testing and a colour pallet scheme has been created for each buff to ask users to pick which they think most suits each aura. From this user testing to determine which aura will be used the highest postivie responses to a colour will be used.

To continue with the integration of the game, user testing needs to be conducted to validate the design. The reasoning behind conducting the test is that the design of the combat items has been newly brought into the game, which means there is no foundation for us as designers to go off. Hence the criticality of conducting such tests. Each combat item’s components, stats, colour, style, and shape need to be validated against the user to truly understand the expected design of the weapon within the game.

Aims & Objectives

• Gain insight into understanding which colours best suit which buffs/debuffs
• Whether aura effects should be based around the player or just the weapon itself
• Whether they think timer icons are necessary within the game
• Possible design improvements on how icons could become more interactive within the game
• Design choices with colour schemes of negative buffs (e.g. increased fire damage intake)

Prototypes

Weapon	Prototype
Athena
Pipe
Plunger
Trident
Bow Plunger
Sword

Testing Approach

Testing will be done through the google forms and allowing studio and external individuals to fill the form in.

Questions

• What colours do you think best represent an attack speed buff aura?
• What colours do you think best represents a damage buff aura?
• What colours do you think best represent a burn/ fire damage aura?
• What colours do you think best represent a toxic damage aura?
• From the given responses above, which colour pallets do you think best suits the different types of buffs? (Speed buff colour pallet = 1. Damage colour pallet = 2. Fire colour pallet = 3. Poison colour pallet = 4)
  • Speed Buff
  • Damage Buff
  • Fire Buff
  • Toxic Buff
• Given that these auras are weapon auras, would you prefer the animation around the player or around the weapon? Or both?
• Do you think that buff timers are necessary?
• Do you think that a fuse going around the box of the aura would improve the aethstics?
• Viewing the icons created for the buffs, what would you think might make the icons more interactive within the game?
• Viewing the last two aura icons on the right from the previous question (fire and poison), what colours do you think might reflect a negation of these auras? E.g. you now take more poison/fire damage.

User Testing Results

Raw Data

Future Directions for Further Testing

In terms of future iterations for the weapon swing animation, it would be interesting to visualise the attack's impact on the enemy. This would make the attack effect clearer and hence realistic.

Some methods we could utilise in order to gain achieve the above outcome might include:

1. Live demonstrations of the game interactions where users get to feel the components implemented during sprint 1 and 2. This would focus on if user can visualise tell that the enemy player has been attacked; if not a form of user testing needs to be conducting exploring a possible solution, one being the one suggested above.
2. In-depth analysis of asking users what they could potentially see needs improvements within the weapon swing itself. This ensure if the weapon swing is enjoyed by users.

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Author

• Caleb Ang, Nisha Vashist
• GitHub: PurrplePanda, Nishavashist0
• Discord: 🅰nneyeong Haseyo™#8083, nishavashist#4270
• Slack: Caleb Ang, Nisha Vashist