So, after a few weeks iv finally decided to add the results of the new level to my blog!
This was the LoS test (Line of Sight) meaning the player had to look at something to make something happen. Basically I wanted to see if the player figured out what how things were appearing e.g looking at a trigger 3 times, then a word would appear and a door would open. I wanted to see if they would start scouring the walls or looking at them three times, most of the players did do that... but unfortunately a lot of them didn't complete the level as they didn't realise they had to look at the specific places three times. The words that appeared were 'Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain' And were each colloured as the different colour of the rainbow, to see if people understood what they were looking for, before they were looking for it.
Below are the notes I made after each player had tested the level.
Tommy – Gave up
after about 3 minutes as he didn’t understand what was happening. He seemed to
think it had something to do with Richard rather than the door that opened when
Richard appeared. Would also seem if you give a player a gun, they will
automatically think the game has something to do with the gun…
Monteeeee - Took
about 30 minutes and got very frustrated while he was playing it. He spent
about 13 -14 minutes looking around until he eventually spotted the ‘Of’. Once
the ‘Of’ appeared everyone who was watching realised it must have something to
do with looking at certain areas, but because he looked around so erratically
it made it difficult for him to find the final words. Plus an error on my part
made it so he spotted the last word too soon… =(. All in all he didn’t
understand the purpose of the test until I explained it to him but also mainly
due to the fact he moved so quickly and didn’t take his time to look around the
environment.
Hoeeeyyyy – Managed
to figure out what was going on with the line of sight triggers, however gave
up after finding ‘Gave’ as a door didn’t open after that word appeared like
with the others. Like with Montee and everyone’s involvement, people thought
that the there was a certain point to look at for the word to appear rather
than looking in area 3 times.
Adam – Couldn’t
complete the level at the same point as Hoey. It seems people get confused as
soon as I switch the mechanic of the LOS trigger to be closer to the floor;
rather than in the middle or at a higher point of the wall. Another thing Adam
thought was that he had to look at a certain point, and then look away at a
certain point for the word to appear and a door to open.
So far testers haven’t managed to get passed the ‘gave’ and
in some cases not even make it to ‘gave. Perhaps it is because I have set the
rule that the word will be somewhere on the wall, so when adding it closer to
the ground players will not look there. Also after hitting the word ‘gave’,
looking around after that seems to also confuse the player. This seems to be
because I have removed the fact a door will open when the word is looked at, so
they don’t take their time to look around the other rooms to make the other
words appear.
Beckie – Ended up
giving up after finding Richard. Mainly because she didn’t know how she found
Richard so she didn’t know what she was looking for to find the next word.
Maybe certain players need the rule to be set from the start of the puzzle
before they are able to figure out the rest of it? Or would they stick at it to
try and figure out themselves? From the previous testers, most persevered and
didn’t want to let the game beat them… so maybe using this as a mechanic itself
would be a good idea?
Taime – Again
gave up on ‘gave’ to begin with he thought the solution was to interact with
part of the wall, which only appeared to work as he had looked at the ‘Richard’
trigger 2 times already then decided to interact. This made him think the rule
was to interact with random parts of the environment (which might be an
interesting test). However after he thought he triggered ‘york’ from clicking
the door frame, he thought it was too random and then saw that gave appeared
view looking at it (however this was done very quickly so he thought it was
again looking at a certain point) he couldn’t figure out what to do next and
gave up. Though when the solution was told to him he thought it was an
interesting idea.
The Change – Adding
the link between rooms.
The main issue with the tests above i noticed was the layout of the level itself. This was because I changed the mechanics, meaning a door didnt open but the palyer had to go back to the main room to look for the next word in the sequence. This meant they had to go back on themselves, as there was no lead or way to know that they were supposed to look in the main room.
when I noticed this I decided to change the layout a little, so when the player got to the word 'Gave' another door would open and lead them to the main room. This seemed to improve the results.
Noah – Noah was
the first to test the updated version of my level. The level now instead of
leading down to the word gave, leads to another room, which then links back to
the main room with ‘Richard’ once the word ‘gave’ has been found. Interestingly
though Noah seemed to think each word had a different solution, the first being
walking backwards into a wall, the second was waiting, the third was clicking
on the previous two and the fourth was looking at it. All were of course wrong
as all they require is to look at that area three times. However, with the new
link to the main room he though the next word was in the small hallway that
links the two rooms, even though two doors open instead of one.
Chris – Chris was
the first tester to complete the level! This is with the updated version
however, with the linking rooms. He was also the first person to realise that
the interaction was to look at the walls however again thought you had to look
at a certain point for the word to appear. He reacted exactly how I wanted the
player to react, scouring the walls for the word to appear. He also though that
the small hallway linking the ‘gave’ room to the main room had the next piece
of the puzzle in it, but when nothing happened he soon moved to the main area.
Rob –Unfortunately
he didn’t complete it and ended up giving up on gave like most others; however
some of the things he did during the test were interesting. Similar to Noah he
seemed to think that each word had a different rule, and so tried different
things every time. The first he thought he walked through a trigger, and the
second he thought was timed. However on ‘york’ he realised it must be something
to do with looking at things. He also seemed to start trying to find patterns
that weren’t actually there, the main one being that a word wouldn’t appear on
a wall that a door has already opened on therefore dismissed those walls
entirely; meaning he didn’t ever look at the ‘Battle’ trigger.
A few things that arose during this test were, that I noticed that a few players are very erratic with their mouse movement and were trying to complete the test as quickly as possible; meaning a lot of the time they missed the triggers. Second, when put in a white room, a lot of people instantly go for the walls and hug them, either running around looking for a secret door, or pressing the action button to see if something will happen. This in turn made me notice something else, the player will try to create rules for the game themselves if they dont know the rules of play already. With a test like this where the player has to look at a specific area, a lot of players thought it was happening randomly, or because they were pressing something they couldnt see. Finally, when I created a link between the 'Gave' room and the main starting room, because there was a small hallway between them, they thought the next word was in there instead.
Next im going to be doing a test to see how much the player relies on help to figure out a puzzle, but also test some of the things I found in this test and previous tests.
Results will be up sooner than these!
Laters taters! =D
