Project 3 - Questionnaire:

Throughout project 3 we unfortunately were only able to play-test our game twice, the first being more of a tech demo than a game. Even though there wasn’t much of a game to actually play i was able to formulate a question which actually benefit ted the process of creating Lock n Loaf.

Asking players how they felt about the movement of the bread was incredibly beneficial, especially the third answer shedding light on the fact that when you would raise your thumbs off the screen after shooting and place them back down it would trigger the bread to shoot immediately. This lead my teammate to refine the touch controls to such a polished state that the players could remove their thumbs and still move the bread vertically on the screen without prematurely firing bread. I can understand how the way it was before this was frustrating to a player specifically as the player had a limited amount of ammunition to shoot, so wasting it like that would detract from the player experience.

In our second play-test we were able to ask more direct questions about how the game played, the most important question revolved around the speed in which the waves of the ingredients were spawning. This was information i felt was crucial to player experience as we had aimed to have the game feel frantic so a slow spawn time would completely detract from that.

The most beneficial feedback came from this and was the fact that players didn't expect the waves to change the formation of the ingredients, there was no visual representation to indicate that it would happen and if the project was moving forward would be something we would add. We could implement it possibly by having an "Upcoming Orders" bar along the top of the screen with the next set of ingredients and if there wasn't enough room on the top of the screen have it on one of the touch pads with a low alpha showing them the exact positioning the ingredients would be in.

UPDATE:

Questions i want to ask in the future:

1 - Did you feel that the music matched the tone of the game

2 - Did you see value in making orders instead of getting combos

Why i want to ask them:

1 - i personally felt that the music style being electronic was the wrong direction to take the game and rather needed upbeat and jovial music which matched the tone of the games models. Feedback i received from a graphic designer was that she thought the game was extremely "cute" and i don't feel that the music represents that.

2 - As orders aren't in the game currently its hard to get feedback on but the plan was to have a particular order for a sandwich and if the player was able to get it during that level they would get a very large point bonus at the end x10 for example. I would like to know if the orders changed the way they played the game.

What i hope to learn from them:

1 - Id love to be proven wrong and hopefully hear that the music added to their immersion and experience.

2 - If the players had changed the way they played because of orders it would help me understand a wider audiences play styles and create more content to meet them, for example learning that a player would go for orders over high nutrition value ingredients would make me create more diverse orders and more orders in general.

Why do i want to learn that :

1 - if players are more immersed in the game they are more likely to play it for a longer period of time especially on public transport, this would let other people see the game and possibly generate interest.

2 - If the orders became a larger part of the game undertanding this would give me the opportunity to produce more content and even theme specific content towards orders.