Paper Prototype Critiques for Week 8
Feedback and critique for Paper Prototype presentations from week 8. All feedback is focused on how the Prototype play test were conducted, not on the core game design idea.
Project title: Mizu
Project Manager: Kawi Cho
I like the feel of this idea, but I was conflicted on the merits of it's Paper Prototype.
One of the strong focuses of the team's design is the game's look and theme: it's aesthetics. They pushed very hard to give a strong and accurate paper representation of the game's final art work and layout. They received strong feedback from the testers on how the game looked, but how the game played was more important. Translating platforming mechanics into a Paper Prototype is almost impossible, and what they used in imitation was die rolls. Dice are far too random, and will give nothing but frustration to the user when they have to roll to see if they made a simple jump, or defeat even the most basic enemy equivalent of a Goomba. This makes the dynamics of the game difficult to test.
However, working with the team's focus on the platforming and visual appeal, creating an overall level layout for the player to follow was a very good idea. Platforming games are all about level layout, so testing it (even in a die-dependent test) gives early impressions on how successful and level layout approach will be when creating the final, functional version.
They really should have spent less time on making the prototype pretty and really pushing a prototype that testing at least ONE of the higher level design mechanics. In the end, their feedback really didn't help them determine the success of any of the core mechanics. That could hurt them later on, but the functional prototype is still to come.
Project title: Antlion
Project Manager: Andrew Thong
The educational nature of this game is, I'm afraid, a difficult base to build on: statistically, educational games are a weak market with an overall poor showing. Maybe this team can make a really great strategy game with genuine educational value, but I don't believe they can. The process of building a game requires so much work and programming that for a team with NO dedicated programming just creating the game will be a difficult enough challenge.
As they have altered the original game design since the first game pitch, the game mechanics have been scaled down to a technically feasible level. For this team, it seems they've resorted to a strategy game, which is (as it turns out) one of the best game genres to perform a Paper Prototype play test with. They used a board and dice for their play test, which meant turn-based gameplay. This, unlike the other groups that presented their findings on the 23rd, met with a great deal of success (in my opinion) in that all the feedback they gain through the play test is on how their game mechanics will play out in a functional prototype.
As it is, they received a fair amount of negative feedback on the game and a handful of suggestions, but it's all information that is based almost directly on how their actual game mechanics would perform. This, in turn, will affect the dynamics of the game and, to round of the trio, they also gave a very clean and stylized Paper Prototype to represent the aesthetics of the game. Very nice job.
Project title: Fins of Fury
Project Manager: Kate Duda
This team is developing an action/adventure game, and in doing so faces immediate problems when conducting a paper-based prototype. The main game mechanics will ALWAYS fail to be properly tested in a Paper Prototype. Translating real time mechanics such as 'timed jumps' and combat (which rely on in-game physics) into a die-based system loses a great deal of meaning during the play test. Looking at their results, the only things they could really bring out of the play test were additions to the game (such as adding puzzles, mini-bosses, and establishing rewards for killing enemies).
Feedback on the actual game mechanics or concept cannot be used accurately to develop the game because the differ so greatly from the mechanics once they are implemented. The best feedback they appeared to receive was concerning the concept and feel of the game, such as how the testers personally wanted to destroy all enemies in each stage. I also felt they should have distinguished the feedback from each tester instead of lumping them together: that way we know what each tester experienced and expressed, and how their results differed.
Project Untitled
Project Manager: Mike Yablondsky
This team encountered a similar difficulty to the Fins of Fury team in that they have an real-time action game, but tested it with turn-based mechanics. I really wished they'd found a way to test the game in real-time, but you can only do so much with Paper Prototypes.
Once again, I wish they'd decided to give the specifics of each tester's feedback in the presentation instead of putting it all together.
From the sounds of it, however, I approve of the feedback and suggestions they got. Which they couldn't test the gameplay action directly, they took excellent steps to test puzzles integrated into the action-oriented gameplay, such forcing the boss to bury his sword in the ground before attacking him (this was included in their testing document). Mixing up action and puzzles can be hard to do well, especially with the limited amount of time we have to develop the game.
However, they were asked to include less puzzles in the final game, which is excellent. They were able to get important feedback on the overall design of the game before the working prototype was completed: excellent! And they also found the need to include more power-ups in the game to assist the player. They tackled balancing issues right of the bat.
On my opinion, they didn't have enough accurately translated mechanics to properly test the dynamics of the game, but they learnt enough to further tweak the mechanics themselves. This will have an overall (positive) affect on the dynamics of the game.
Project title: Mizu
Project Manager: Kawi Cho
I like the feel of this idea, but I was conflicted on the merits of it's Paper Prototype.
One of the strong focuses of the team's design is the game's look and theme: it's aesthetics. They pushed very hard to give a strong and accurate paper representation of the game's final art work and layout. They received strong feedback from the testers on how the game looked, but how the game played was more important. Translating platforming mechanics into a Paper Prototype is almost impossible, and what they used in imitation was die rolls. Dice are far too random, and will give nothing but frustration to the user when they have to roll to see if they made a simple jump, or defeat even the most basic enemy equivalent of a Goomba. This makes the dynamics of the game difficult to test.
However, working with the team's focus on the platforming and visual appeal, creating an overall level layout for the player to follow was a very good idea. Platforming games are all about level layout, so testing it (even in a die-dependent test) gives early impressions on how successful and level layout approach will be when creating the final, functional version.
They really should have spent less time on making the prototype pretty and really pushing a prototype that testing at least ONE of the higher level design mechanics. In the end, their feedback really didn't help them determine the success of any of the core mechanics. That could hurt them later on, but the functional prototype is still to come.
Project title: Antlion
Project Manager: Andrew Thong
The educational nature of this game is, I'm afraid, a difficult base to build on: statistically, educational games are a weak market with an overall poor showing. Maybe this team can make a really great strategy game with genuine educational value, but I don't believe they can. The process of building a game requires so much work and programming that for a team with NO dedicated programming just creating the game will be a difficult enough challenge.
As they have altered the original game design since the first game pitch, the game mechanics have been scaled down to a technically feasible level. For this team, it seems they've resorted to a strategy game, which is (as it turns out) one of the best game genres to perform a Paper Prototype play test with. They used a board and dice for their play test, which meant turn-based gameplay. This, unlike the other groups that presented their findings on the 23rd, met with a great deal of success (in my opinion) in that all the feedback they gain through the play test is on how their game mechanics will play out in a functional prototype.
As it is, they received a fair amount of negative feedback on the game and a handful of suggestions, but it's all information that is based almost directly on how their actual game mechanics would perform. This, in turn, will affect the dynamics of the game and, to round of the trio, they also gave a very clean and stylized Paper Prototype to represent the aesthetics of the game. Very nice job.
Project title: Fins of Fury
Project Manager: Kate Duda
This team is developing an action/adventure game, and in doing so faces immediate problems when conducting a paper-based prototype. The main game mechanics will ALWAYS fail to be properly tested in a Paper Prototype. Translating real time mechanics such as 'timed jumps' and combat (which rely on in-game physics) into a die-based system loses a great deal of meaning during the play test. Looking at their results, the only things they could really bring out of the play test were additions to the game (such as adding puzzles, mini-bosses, and establishing rewards for killing enemies).
Feedback on the actual game mechanics or concept cannot be used accurately to develop the game because the differ so greatly from the mechanics once they are implemented. The best feedback they appeared to receive was concerning the concept and feel of the game, such as how the testers personally wanted to destroy all enemies in each stage. I also felt they should have distinguished the feedback from each tester instead of lumping them together: that way we know what each tester experienced and expressed, and how their results differed.
Project Untitled
Project Manager: Mike Yablondsky
This team encountered a similar difficulty to the Fins of Fury team in that they have an real-time action game, but tested it with turn-based mechanics. I really wished they'd found a way to test the game in real-time, but you can only do so much with Paper Prototypes.
Once again, I wish they'd decided to give the specifics of each tester's feedback in the presentation instead of putting it all together.
From the sounds of it, however, I approve of the feedback and suggestions they got. Which they couldn't test the gameplay action directly, they took excellent steps to test puzzles integrated into the action-oriented gameplay, such forcing the boss to bury his sword in the ground before attacking him (this was included in their testing document). Mixing up action and puzzles can be hard to do well, especially with the limited amount of time we have to develop the game.
However, they were asked to include less puzzles in the final game, which is excellent. They were able to get important feedback on the overall design of the game before the working prototype was completed: excellent! And they also found the need to include more power-ups in the game to assist the player. They tackled balancing issues right of the bat.
On my opinion, they didn't have enough accurately translated mechanics to properly test the dynamics of the game, but they learnt enough to further tweak the mechanics themselves. This will have an overall (positive) affect on the dynamics of the game.
posted by Cody Church at
11:37 PM
<< Home