IP2 - Testing and Evaluation

Today's testing session went pretty well. I had a total of 10 users play the game and complete a survey.

This latest prototype generally achieved it's purpose, and all of the users testing it had little problem grasping the concept of the game and how the physical controls operated. 100% of users responded that they understood the game's concept. 8 out of 10 understood it well from my instructions given, 2 users would've preferred some more explanation. Especially for those who had never played Guess Who, I could've explained the elimination concept more clearly in detail, as those who never played had trouble choosing the correct character tiles to eliminate at first.

The game board was successful and I received positive feedback on it's construction. There were a few technical issues, where 2 of the tiles weren't able to make an adequate contact with the earth points. As the tiles are pretty thick and heavy, the steel wool helped to cushion the impact when the tile drops, but for one tile (#6) it broke off, so when it was dropped, sometimes the metal to metal contact caused the tile to bounce and not register a move - usually causing the frog character to get hit by a truck. Another tile's hinge was a bit too tight (#4), so it didn't drop down easily, also causing problems with the game. At times this resulted in the user losing the game, when they otherwise would've won. 3 users noted in the survey to improve the tech breakdowns on the game board as an issue, so this is something I will definitely improve in the next iteration.

Most participants grasped the guessing/elimination concept quickly. 4 of the 10 users had a little trouble matching the clues to the eliminate the correct frogs - for example some users had trouble eliminating the right tiles after receiving a clue that used a negative style description, "I am not wearing a hat" - users would put down tiles of the frog's not wearing a hat, rather than eliminating the opposite frogs with hats. However, no one had trouble with the opposite clue, "I'm wearing a hat", users all correctly eliminated frogs not wearing hats.

I personally don't think I'd change this type of negative clue, as it does require a bit more mental challenge, and over playing multiple times, users tended to realise this mistake and self-correct to eliminate the right character tiles.

I received positive feedback regarding enjoyment and fun users had, and about the uniqueness of the controls. 7 users rated the game 5 out of a 5 point scale (5 being the best score), and the remaining 3 rated it a 4. As for uniqueness, 7 rated it 5 out of 5, 2 users rated it a 4, and 1 user rated it a 3 (5 being the best score).

As for the difficulty, there was a wider spread of replies, this may be due to the fact that the earlier sessions, the speed of the trucks was faster and the earlier users found it a bit too hard, so I compensated later by slowing the speed down. Half of the users found the difficulty suitable, rating it an average of 3 (challenging, but not impossible), and an the rest evenly spread on either side of this rating. Some user suggestions included creating levels to help ease players in and teach them how to play, gradually making the levels more difficult. Another was to be able to choose a difficulty level. This is a definite consideration for the next prototype.

  

   

Unfortunately I didn't capture any recording of wins - here's some recording of players almost winning, one user would've won if my game board didn't fail :(

Survey Link:
http://goo.gl/forms/ayAlSBwWgu

Summary of responses:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1JfgVLDcQDcQhkIdgUM1F2P1qE-_GWyKw7wCLIwAiEFk/viewanalytics

IP2 - Concept

Hop to Who?! combines the games Guess Who and Frogger. There are 2 main aims of the game, firstly to safely guide the frog across the road, and second to guess the identity of the frog’s mystery date waiting on the other side of the road. This game is aimed at those aged 5 years and up. It’s purpose is to mix elements from both games in order to create a game that is both challenging and fun.

A physical Guess Who tile board is the physical input for the game. Each “tile” shows a different and unique character. As the game progresses, clues about the chosen single mystery date will be shown on screen, allowing the player to eliminate incorrect characters by dropping a tile face down. Each time a tile is put down, this controls the forward movement of the main frog on screen.

The Story of "Hop to Who?!":

The Frog needs to cross the road to meet his blind date. As he crosses, the game will display clues about the characteristics of the blind date. The player needs to both get across the road and match the mystery date with the final remaining character tile.

Frogger elements:

• The game objective of getting the frog safely across the road.
• Timing the moves to avoid getting hit by moving traffic.
• The frog character and the level design.

Guess Who elements:

• Eliminating all the characters displayed so only 1 remains
• Giving descriptive clues to help the player eliminate the character tiles.
• Physical interaction of flipping down tiles.

How to play:

• The on-screen interface will display the game interface, there also will be a physical Guess Who style board with 10 character tiles shown face up.
• There are 2 objectives, both equally important. Get the frog across the road to safety and eliminate all but one of the characters correctly.
• The onscreen clues will give the player hints as to which frog tile to drop down.
• Each time a tile drops down, the frog on screen will move forward one space
• As the game progresses, further clues will be given to help eliminate frogs.
• The challenge is to flip the tiles down in sync with moving the frog to avoid collisions. This requires 2 mental processes to happen at once, strategic elimination and quick response.
• If the player gets the frog to safety, then there is the added reveal to check if the player has selected the right character.
• If the remaining tile matches the mystery date, the frog will live happily ever after. Otherwise sadly the frog goes home alone.

Making IP2

For the 2nd interactive prototype, not a lot changed concept wise, but I made a lot a changes to the game's interaction and code.

In this iteration, the Guess Who element and the physical controls were added. In order to account for the guessing/elimination features I had to add in new object (character.as) for the extra mystery frog date characters , which held attributes representing their characteristics:

• colour: red, blue, green
• wearing a hat: true/false
• wearing glasses: true/false

As well as adjusting the existing code to support the new feature, I also added a new function to show the clues that help describe the mystery frog (chosen randomly each time the game restarts)

One annoying problem was with one of the red trucks appear at the top of the screen, above the clue box, even though the stacking order seemed to be correct. I tried deleting the last truck added to the truck array, but this just forced the next last truck to do the same thing. I ended up working around this and cheating by adding an extra truck to the stage, but positioning it below the visible stage area, so it stayed hidden.

Working on the new code

The final interface, with the new clue box sidebar added to display the clues one at a time

The game board is made from a piece of 15mm thick MDF, and the 10 tiles are also cut from this material. Each tile has an illustration of a different frog character (each one has a unique description, and physical attributes are evenly spread out). The top of each tile has a metal screw at the top with a wire soldered through to the back connected to a Makey Makey input (the letters WASDFG and the 4 directional arrow keys). The tile is attached to the bottom board with a hinge, so when it is dropped down, it hits another metal screw which is wired to the earth.

The game board

The back of the board

Close up of the game board and Makey Makey

After initial testing the game, I found that the tiles sometimes bounced when dropped down. This caused the controls to malfunction, either not registering at all, or conversely too many times, meaning the movement of the frog character on screen didn't move at all or move too many times. To combat this, I added some aluminium foil to cover the bottom contact. This seemed to work at first, but didn't fix the issue completely. I then tried taping some pieces of steel wool on instead, this worked a lot better and also made it less noisier. I then decided to solder the steel wool in place so it stayed in place.

I also decided to add in a physical replay button to replace the spacebar key - it's just a wire attached to the space key, with a paper "button" taped on top which when pressed touches a screw connected to the ground.

Overall I'm pretty happy with how it all turned out. I was pretty lucky to have my partner help me construct the board in a way that kept it all nice and neatly organised and taught me how to solder the wires in place. If it were up to me there would've been a mass confusion of wires running all over the place. The steel wool and screw contacts are probably not the most ideal solution for ensuring the best contact between the tile and the board, as it does tend to move a bit. But for this stage it works the majority of the time and is easy to adjust and manoeuvre. The size and weight of the board also are a bit too much, but it was a cheap and easy material to use appropriate for a prototype at this early stage.

Testing the game

Adding the steel wool to the bottom metal contacts