Storyline User Test

Storyline

Background and Goals

We have Completed contents of Storyline:

• Introduction
• Gameplay
  • Choices
  • Scenarios
• Traitor Info
• Tools
• Game Mode
• Info about NPCs
• Chapters (6 in total)

This user test is aimed to improve our features and make changes to the model.

Process

To conduct our user testing we did the following:

• We invited users to have a view of our storyline on Wiki and in-game content.
• We observed the actions they had when reading the storyline.
• Record every important observations like "they like the introduction", "they have questions about how to identify the traitors " etc.
• After they finish reading the storyline, we interviewed them with several questions regarding the stroyline.

Secondly, invite developers from the relevant project team to come to test:

• Inform them of relevant test items.
• Each tester conducts the test individually.
• Experience the game flow.
• Each person takes turns evaluating game features.

Key questions

• What's your opinions about the storyline? (in any perspectives)
• What did you like/dislike about the storyline?
• Do you have any advice to improve the storyline?
• Are there any questions? Was there anything that was confusing about how the game worked?

Results

User 1:

• Observations:

  • The user liked the storyline.
  • The overall story is well designed, especially the chapter section.

• Thoughts:

  • The story designed well, each chapter is continuous.

• Likes/Dislikes:

  • Liked：The design of the princess is very good, so that the background of the story is more miserable and rich.
  • Disliked: The in-game interface is a little simple, it is best to add elements of Atlantis.

• General Comments/Suggestions:

  • Improve the in-game design.
  • Add more npcs to satisfy the requriements of gamemode.

User 2:

• Observations:

  • Users take a long time to read the text

• Thoughts:

  • Storyline is directly displayed in the game with a large amount of text at once, reading is a bit tired

• Likes/Dislikes:

  • Liked：The core of the storyline and how players collect the clues to identify the traitor.
  • Disliked: The in-game text is too long.

• General Comments/Suggestions:

  • Try to split the text during the game process.
  • Tell the player how to start the game at the beginning using the coversations with other npcs
  • Players will receive more information as collecting more clues.

User 3:

• Observations:

  • The user is confused about the info of traitor
  • The user seems to like the characteristics of the npcs.

• Thoughts:

  • The information about the traitor will tell the player directly or is this a clue that will be provided to the player later？
  • The gameplay could be richer and more interesting, depending on the design of the later tasks
  • I hope the game can have a longer process

• Likes/Dislikes:

  • Liked：The design of npcs
  • Disliked: If the tasks of collecting scales are very simple and repetitive, the game will be a bit boring

• General Comments/Suggestions:

  • Add some side quests
  • Increase the difficulty of the task

Summary

Almost all participants still prefer the overall story background as well as the content of the chapters, while also being satisfied with the characteristics of the existing NPCs.

The problem is that the existing NPC design is not enough to meet the basic settings of the game (9 NPCs), and the props that can be used in the game are not enough.The in-game display of the storyline is also a bit rough, and it needs to be slowly added to the flow of the game in the subsequent sprints, rather than directly showing all the content to the player to read.