YEAR 2 - BA2a - Testing

I tested the game between friends at home and took notes as they played:

- Generally players only realized the importance of gold once they realized that you could use it to buy things.
    This sounds like a problem initially but I actually quite like it because it changes the landscape somewhat once players realize this. When they're new to the game, players only have to worry about finding the door but once they learn the value of gold they are is essence given a sub-goal that might change the way they play the next time through.

 - Most players played fairly cautiously but they were more outgoing as they got used to the zombies AI.
    It is by design that players should feel like they understand the zombies to an extent but in the full version of the game, the zombies AI needs to be smart enough that players can never feel entirely safe. Else, they will fair to find them scary.

- Once finding the outer wall, players would generally stick to it until they got close to the door
    This is a problem that would need fixing in the final version of the game. If players can bypass all danger then there is no challenge to the game and it looses most of it's meaning. A solution might be to remove the mine-able blocks by the outer wall and lose some mystery OR to have some kind of consequence to standing to close to the outer wall like an enemy that comes out of it.

- All players said it was clear that the large blocks in the outer wall were unbreakable
    Good. Their function is clear by their design so I don't need to explicitly tell players this.

I asked players some questions about their experiences playing the game. Here are my results:

Q - Did the zombies pose a threat?

A - Yeah, even when I had the gun there was still the possibility of one coming up behind you and killing you since you die in one hit


Q - Do you think that if I added other pickups you would be inclined to explore more?

A - I think I probably would. Like when I ran out of ammo I had to go back to stealth mode.


Q - Were the mechanics(after I initially explained them) clear? was your objective obvious?

A - Yeah, it seemed generally quite intuitve


Q - Were the zombies scary?

A - Initially yeah but after I git used to them they weren't so much


Q - Did you prefer this game to silk runner? (I'll talk about Silk Runner in a later post)

A - Yes, I think it was mostly because this game had an objective. Silk runner has a lot of potential if it were more fleshed out.


Q - Any thing else you want to add?

A - Maybe if it was an endless game, if you were going to go for that, it would be cool to have the decision of stacking up on ammo or flares"

Other notes:
- I need to make it clearer when you die
- I need to give the player more ecouragement to explore
- I think it's worth adding another rarer enemy type