Playability

Even though the game is nowhere near finished, there are plenty of content, features and mechanics that have been added. I think it is fair to say that we have a working prototype of our game and it is time to test it. This is a vital part of the development, as we would understand if the developed features are useful and working properly, and also to learn if we are headed in the right direction. To do that, I have to play the prototype, as if I have never seen it, and evaluate its playability. In order to stay as unbiased as possible, I am going to be using the Heuristic Evaluation of Playability for guidelines while playing the game. As we are still in the early stages of development, I think this is the best time to use these heuristics and the best way to assess our work. This method is also great because it has been used before and is established as good method for evaluating playability.

The team made a short video showing gameplay form the first level.

The four main aspects, which I am going to evaluate are the game play, game story, mechanics and the usability of the game. I am also going to try to evaluate the whole experience and enjoyment of playing.

After playing the game, I have noticed that there isn’t a big variety of activities. The game is short and there aren’t many levels, but that doesn’t mean the number of activities should be low as well. While there are many ways to avoid the robots and cameras and the player could choose between different paths, that’s about the only activity there is. Another thing I have noticed while playing “for the first time” is that there are not clearly set tasks. I know what is the main task and what to do next, but that’s because I was involved in the development. A person who plays for the first time wouldn’t have any idea what to do. There aren’t any signs or guides of what the player has to do. Both of this issues could be easily fixed. We could add more and different activities and also set instructions for the player, whether that would be implemented in the story or literally just written on the screen. This is also related to the lack of any tutorials. There is no introduction to the game mechanics and controls. However, the solutions to these issues require one major resource which we are lacking. Most of the issues I have found in the game could be easily fixed, but they all require much more time than we have. Other game play issues I have spotted are: the game is not really enjoyable to replay. Once you have completed the main task to rob the mansion, there really isn’t anything else to do. Since you already know how to do it and there aren’t many options to completed it in other ways, the game feels boring to replay. This could also be fixed with adding more activities or ways to complete tasks. Overall, the gameplay lacks many features and doesn’t meet most of the requirements of the HEP. While many core gameplay elements are developed, there hasn’t been put much thought about the actual player of the game.

The story is hard to evaluate because our game literally lacks any story. We though about the main objective, which is important, but a key element is missing. We have to come up with a story and implement it in the game. Without this, the user is not attached to any characters and is not interested and involved in the game. The scenes are not put in any context. After we spend a lot of time creating a story, it is also vital to create a way to integrate it in the actual gameplay, so the user can understand it. The. solution to this is that we spend a lot of time working on the story. However, we are a small team any time, spent on the story, is a time that we are not investing in developing other aspects of the game. This means that we have to come up with a short and simple solution to the problem.

The game mechanics could be considered on the well developed aspects of our game, according to the heuristics. The game does make use of the AI and it is clearly visible by the player. The AI is also consistent with the reasonable player expectations of the AI actor. The guard moves and acts as a real life one would. He patrols and stops occasionally while looking for threats. Also, there are simple and reasonably mapped controller actions. They are intuitive and easy to get used to. This is because we used the standard for most games controls – “wasd” to move, “spacebar” to jump, etc. However, there is no actual way of figuring out the controls, except from trying them out. This problem and the fact that the player is not able to always keep track of their progress, refer back to the lack of any tutorial, hints or clues for the player. As for meeting the users expectations and following the game industry trends, the game does feel similar to other games in some aspects. This is a good thing, because the player feels comfortable while playing. As already stated, the controls are standard, the scenes are familiar and the main goal of the game has been used used in many other games. Many of the mechanics issues could be fixed with better implementation of existing features. we should spend more time on development and testing the features, we already have.

From usability standpoint, our game is once again missing some important features. There isn’t any immediate feedback from the user’s actions. Sometimes there isn’t any feedback at all. For example, when the player gets spotted by the robot, the level immediately restarts. There isn’t any visual or audio feedback. This may leave the player really frustrated. We are also missing some key features like menu, settings and manual. The lack of manual or tutorial also contribute to the fact that the game couldn’t be played easily without them. Even though we tried to make it intuitive as possible, I still feel that a normal user would be confused and frustrated with learning to play the game. As for the art of the game, it is easily recognisable by the player and easy to tell what their functions are.

Overall, the game lacks many key elements and couldn’t be considered as very good developed, from playability standpoint. Even though, we haven’t implemented many vital features like game menu, story, immediate action feedback, I am satisfied with the direction the game is headed. There is a good main idea and the implementation of most of the existing features is good. The absence of many core aspects could be explained with shortage of time. Even with many elements missing, I was still able to enjoy the game. In order to fix the issues and continue further in the development, we need to look at what we are missing, fix the problems, and manage our time correctly.