I borrowed the Makey Makey a few days ago and since then I've had a lot of fun playing around with it. The first thing I did was hook up a bunch of bananas to my computer and played super mario. I got some of my friends playing it and they were hooked. The thing that most startled me was the responsiveness of the system. I thought that touching bananas would cause some sort of lag but it's practically instantaneous. It certainly opens up a whole new world of possibilities in terms of the kinds of high speed games that could be controlled with the makey makey.
I'm currently building some game pads to be used with my game and am looking forward to putting them in action. The idea is to have players run on the game pad to run forward. This should be interesting and I'm hoping it will be exciting. I'll make sure I film the prototyping of the game so that you can see how people will play the game. When I get something workable I will test with a bunch of alpha testers to see how they respond to the game controller as a way of controlling the game.
Saturday 27 September 2014
Wednesday 24 September 2014
Week 7 - Questioning Feedback
Since developing the interactive prototype and getting the feedback, we have had our week 7 contact in which we discussed how to ask the right questions when getting feedback. Two important factors we looked at was considering which questions were the right questions and what is the proper way to ask them.
Asking the right questions
When it comes to asking the right questions, the thing that was really hit home was to make it measurable. What do I mean by that? I mean that you should ask questions that allow the responder to answer in a way that creates a measurable response. This allows for a quantitative summary rather than a subjective qualitative response. For e.g. 70% of students prefer option A over option B. That's not saying that getting qualitative feedback isn't helpful, because it is. It just helps to be able to say that a certain percentage of users preferred certain options over others. Once it's established which is better, it's then ideal to go back and see why that conclusion was met.
We went on to talk about different approaches to asking the questions, involving things like removing bias (or adjusting for it rather), and measuring the difference of opinions quantitatively. The example given is just presenting a simple scale from 1 to 5 and allowing the users to mark their opinions on this scale rather than just a boolean yes/no.
How to ask the questions
It's important when asking the questions to ensure that the responses are as accurate as possible. In order to achieve this we should make sure that we don't ask leading questions. This just makes sense but it's an easy thing to do if you are not being careful in question design. Additionally it's important to allow the user to make their own statement. If interviewing them it's always best not to interrupt when they are speaking or even when they're not as it might prompt them to further explain. This is a very important part of asking questions.
Attitude is also very important. It's crucial to avoid condescending or rough language which might put off the interviewee. Being polite but assertive is a good method to ensuring the optimal amount of cooperation from the user.
Asking the right questions
When it comes to asking the right questions, the thing that was really hit home was to make it measurable. What do I mean by that? I mean that you should ask questions that allow the responder to answer in a way that creates a measurable response. This allows for a quantitative summary rather than a subjective qualitative response. For e.g. 70% of students prefer option A over option B. That's not saying that getting qualitative feedback isn't helpful, because it is. It just helps to be able to say that a certain percentage of users preferred certain options over others. Once it's established which is better, it's then ideal to go back and see why that conclusion was met.
We went on to talk about different approaches to asking the questions, involving things like removing bias (or adjusting for it rather), and measuring the difference of opinions quantitatively. The example given is just presenting a simple scale from 1 to 5 and allowing the users to mark their opinions on this scale rather than just a boolean yes/no.
How to ask the questions
It's important when asking the questions to ensure that the responses are as accurate as possible. In order to achieve this we should make sure that we don't ask leading questions. This just makes sense but it's an easy thing to do if you are not being careful in question design. Additionally it's important to allow the user to make their own statement. If interviewing them it's always best not to interrupt when they are speaking or even when they're not as it might prompt them to further explain. This is a very important part of asking questions.
Attitude is also very important. It's crucial to avoid condescending or rough language which might put off the interviewee. Being polite but assertive is a good method to ensuring the optimal amount of cooperation from the user.
Saturday 13 September 2014
Interactive Prototype 1 Feedback
Unfortunately I was unable to attend the B practical of week 7 so I organised some students to help me out in a bit of free time. I gathered a group of 5 students with a variety of backgrounds and degrees so as to get as diverse a feedback I possibly could. What follows is a summary of their responses to my follow-up interview questions.
Which version of the game did you like best and why?
All those interviewed said that they preferred the game variant which required a pacman to capture a minimum of 2 sides in order to capture the square. It was unanimous in that they all said it was due to the fact that the games went on a bit longer. Only requiring 1 side was essentially too quick and didn't leave enough game time. I found this unsurprising as I had come to the same conclusion by myself but I wanted to make sure that it was a general consensus. It will however be interesting to see how everyone feels once the controller becomes more physical. We'll see if they want the games going longer then haha.
When it came to starting positions though they were a bit torn. None of them really liked position 1 due to the players starting too far apart. It made each player's run too easy (especially with 1-capture). When it came to the other 2 positions though they didn't really know which to choose from. 3/5 said they probably preferred the more central one but couldn't really describe why they thought it was better than the other one. The one thing they all did agree on though was the fact that players should definitely start very close to each other as it really opened up the game a lot more. They all agreed that this made the game more exciting. This surprised me. I thought that the players starting further apart would be better. It seems I was wrong.
What did you like about the game concepts?
Everyone said that they liked the idea of 'capturing' squares. One person said "It's a fresh take on something that everyone knows" which is great, but that's just about the only real piece of useful feedback I was able to get from this question. They didn't mention the way players move or anything else which leads me directly to the next question.
What didn't you like about the game concepts?
Here I got some pretty brutal but pretty useful feedback. No-one really liked the way players were controlled on the keyboard. They didn't really mind having to tap the key to move forward (although they said they would prefer not having to do that), but the thing they really didn't like was having to change direction by 'turning left ' or 'turning right'. They found it confusing because if you're heading down and want to start going right across the screen, you have to turn left.
I originally designed the controls with a physical controller in mind. So that when you're running there would be fewer pads necessary. Even when I asked them to consider the practicalities of a more physical 'floor-pad' style controller they were still unsure if it would be ideal. The problem, as they said, would still be there. So I daresay I'll have to rework the next prototype for a simpler controller.
What would you add to make the game better?
This question made it far more interesting. I got many different suggestions. Mostly related to the original Pacman game, like having ghosts that could chase you around and force you to change your route. The four people who suggested that idea said it would make the game more interesting. One of the four went even further by suggesting making the game more like mario kart. Allowing players to fire missiles/special items around that have a negative effect on the other player. I thought that idea was pretty interesting and would really like to have a go at implementing that. I actually went back and asked the other 4 people what they thought of the Mario Kart style idea. They loved it. Basically said Mario Kart is such an exciting game because other players can affect you. So I think this is something I will definitely have to look at doing this.
Which version of the game did you like best and why?
All those interviewed said that they preferred the game variant which required a pacman to capture a minimum of 2 sides in order to capture the square. It was unanimous in that they all said it was due to the fact that the games went on a bit longer. Only requiring 1 side was essentially too quick and didn't leave enough game time. I found this unsurprising as I had come to the same conclusion by myself but I wanted to make sure that it was a general consensus. It will however be interesting to see how everyone feels once the controller becomes more physical. We'll see if they want the games going longer then haha.
When it came to starting positions though they were a bit torn. None of them really liked position 1 due to the players starting too far apart. It made each player's run too easy (especially with 1-capture). When it came to the other 2 positions though they didn't really know which to choose from. 3/5 said they probably preferred the more central one but couldn't really describe why they thought it was better than the other one. The one thing they all did agree on though was the fact that players should definitely start very close to each other as it really opened up the game a lot more. They all agreed that this made the game more exciting. This surprised me. I thought that the players starting further apart would be better. It seems I was wrong.
What did you like about the game concepts?
Everyone said that they liked the idea of 'capturing' squares. One person said "It's a fresh take on something that everyone knows" which is great, but that's just about the only real piece of useful feedback I was able to get from this question. They didn't mention the way players move or anything else which leads me directly to the next question.
What didn't you like about the game concepts?
Here I got some pretty brutal but pretty useful feedback. No-one really liked the way players were controlled on the keyboard. They didn't really mind having to tap the key to move forward (although they said they would prefer not having to do that), but the thing they really didn't like was having to change direction by 'turning left ' or 'turning right'. They found it confusing because if you're heading down and want to start going right across the screen, you have to turn left.
I originally designed the controls with a physical controller in mind. So that when you're running there would be fewer pads necessary. Even when I asked them to consider the practicalities of a more physical 'floor-pad' style controller they were still unsure if it would be ideal. The problem, as they said, would still be there. So I daresay I'll have to rework the next prototype for a simpler controller.
What would you add to make the game better?
This question made it far more interesting. I got many different suggestions. Mostly related to the original Pacman game, like having ghosts that could chase you around and force you to change your route. The four people who suggested that idea said it would make the game more interesting. One of the four went even further by suggesting making the game more like mario kart. Allowing players to fire missiles/special items around that have a negative effect on the other player. I thought that idea was pretty interesting and would really like to have a go at implementing that. I actually went back and asked the other 4 people what they thought of the Mario Kart style idea. They loved it. Basically said Mario Kart is such an exciting game because other players can affect you. So I think this is something I will definitely have to look at doing this.
Monday 8 September 2014
Interactive Prototype #1
For my first interactive prototype I've decided to implement a bare-bones version of my game Tic-Pac-Toe that I initially prototyped with my video. The basics of the game are described below.
- The game is a cross between noughts and crosses and pacman.
- Each player controls a pacman
- Each pacman can only move over the lines of the game board.
- Once a pacman has traversed the enitre length of the side of one square, that player 'captures' that side of the squar.
- Depending on the prototype, a player will be required to capture either 1 or 2 sides of a square to capture the square.
- Once a player has captured a square, it gets marked with the 'X' or 'O' that is associated with that player.
- Squares can be taken from another player, if the other player takes a majority of the sides of that square.
- Victory is decided the same way as noughts and crosses with a line of 3 marking victory.
Here's a link to the original video:
- The game is a cross between noughts and crosses and pacman.
- Each player controls a pacman
- Each pacman can only move over the lines of the game board.
- Once a pacman has traversed the enitre length of the side of one square, that player 'captures' that side of the squar.
- Depending on the prototype, a player will be required to capture either 1 or 2 sides of a square to capture the square.
- Once a player has captured a square, it gets marked with the 'X' or 'O' that is associated with that player.
- Squares can be taken from another player, if the other player takes a majority of the sides of that square.
- Victory is decided the same way as noughts and crosses with a line of 3 marking victory.
Here's a link to the original video:
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