The Door Test

So, last time I mentioned I was going to create a small level to see if the player learnt how to play the level by doing, rather than me giving them hints.

This test was a really small, simple puzzle including 3 doors. I put the player in the room and let them play. I had 7 people play it, all of them with a lot of gaming experience (seeing as the game I am working on is for a more hardcore audience) Only one of them couldn't figure out the puzzle, and took them up to 5-6 minutes; at which point they gave up. I asked them why they couldnt figure it out and they told me that it was because there wasn't any hints...
However everyone previously did a fine job, some of them were still confused as to what happened in the end and werent sure what the actual solution was, but all of them realised that there was one main thing that kept happeneing during the level. Also they all knew their objective, even though I didnt tell them anything, which was to reach a door on a higher platform.

Basically my aim was to see if the player realised that when they were wrong they would come out of door 1, but if they were right they would come out of a different door. 5 out of the 7 realised this, 1 was completely confused and didnt know how they completed the level, and 1 just quit. The sequence to complete the level was simple, door 1, door 2, door 3.

Below are a few videos I recorded while watching people play (appologies for the vertical filming and low sound, was done on my phone!...and hopefully theses actually appear right on here):

This tester was one of average lot and figured it out in a reasonable time:

This tester had played there level for about 2 minutes previous to me recording this segment, and was the one that ended up quitin:

This tester took longer than the others but still managed to complete the level, mainly through trial and error, but in the end realised what door did what:

So out of these results, even though the puzzle was quick and simple with no idication of what to do, it was possible for the player to learn how to complete a puzzle without any indication of how to do it, even if it requires trail and error; with only 1 out of the 7 required hints. However, some did say maybe a little feedback on what was happening would benefit, as a lot of the time the player was just confused when they teleported from door to door. This was mainly because the test was really made quite simply and the telporting jolted the player, but if done correctly would probably be less confusing. One thing I also noticed, was that when the players were running through the doors and were trying to figure out what was going on, most of them tried to walk backwards through the doors instead...I don't know why, maybe they hoped to see something happen in the level when they teleported? Could be something to look into!

Until next time!

Laters taters!