Group project reflection - the joys and trials of playtesting

My favorite aspect of the game design project was the process of playtesting the game prototype in different stages of the design process. From bodystorming the experience of sound-based interaction to testing the difficulty of our game in its later form, I enjoyed the process of reflecting and receiving feedback on a variety of aspects of our game. 

In the beginning of the project, when we were still very unsure of where the concept was heading, it was exciting just to think about all the possibilities. Trying out the experience of blind navigation through sound stimuli was highly inspiring, and it was augmented by our benchmarking exploration of other existing sound-based games. When we were self-testing, it was interesting to see how my own expectations were either confirmed or denied by the experience of actually trying it out myself. It is one thing to come up with an idea for a mechanic that sounds cool, but knowing if it will actually work and be cool in reality is a whole different thing. Self-testing during the concept development phase is extremely important, and although I think we spent a little too long lingering on this phase and not leaving enough time for better implementation, I'm glad we had the chance to explore what we really wanted to do with this game. It would have been worse if we had committed to a concept and mechanics that we didn't really like and got stuck with it for the rest of the project.

Playtesting on others was also a highly informative learning experience. The most difficult part for me in playtesting (and with user testing in interaction design in general) is leaving the tester alone to explore the prototype, to not interrupt and help them too much. When we were playtesting our mid-fi prototype this was particularly important. We wanted to see if our game "made sense" as it was, but I felt like I had to explain certain aspects of the game anyway. But because I kept myself from explaining to the tester what the game was about and how to play it, we got more meaningful feedback as we watched the testers figure it out on their own. Certain aspects that were unclear became obvious, and we could then move on in development to improve the game experience.

I think the most beneficial part of this course has been the in depth iterative design process with the strong emphasis on testing and reflection. This was a good opportunity to hone my user testing techniques and learn why and how it is important. Although I don't see myself going on to design games (but perhaps play some more games than I used to), I did get a lot out of the process of designing a game from start to finish. 

Comments on The Sims and cheating

Although I have never been a big fan of The Sims myself, it has always seemed to me like an interesting game, and I've never had trouble seeing why people find it so addictive. The player becomes a sort of god, controlling every aspect of their sims' lives, making them suffer or making them happy and successful. I'm also fascinated by the way cheats are so explicitly incorporated into the game. I found a few posts from my classmates that took up cheating in The Sims and thought it would be fun to give my own two cents on the matter, even though I have limited experience playing the game.

My first thought when we discussed cheating in general is that it really isn't possible to cheat in the normal sense at a one-player game. The Sims is a perfect example. By entering cheat codes to attain endless money or instantly enhance other aspects of the game, you are only skipping  over all the strategy and content of the actual game. The essence of the game changes - instead of working patiently to increase the success of your sim, you can perhaps focus more time on spending a bunch of money and seeing how badly you can mess things up for your sims. It is still a game, just that the rules have been bended drastically to alter the core gameplay. And since it is only one person playing the game by themselves, it doesn't ruin anything for anyone else.

Emilie argues differently: "We discussed in class about if it really is cheating when you play against yourself and with no actual finish line?  It is debatable but I will say that the answer to that question is yes. Even if you don’t really have an opponent or a goal, it is still cheating because when you cheat you kind of destroy the purpose of the game when you can make anything happen."

From my impression, the main point in The Sims is that the player has full power over their sims. Removing the time variable to attain money might change the dynamics of patiently following your sim around for hours on end, but it doesn't "destroy the purpose of the game", unless being superfluously patient is the point of the game. The only times I've played Sims or Sim City I've used cheats to quickly create a more interesting game and then see how creatively I can destroy the sims' lives or ruin the city. Does that make me a cheater? I think it just means I want to play the game differently, and The Sims is designed in a way to be open for that.

Nellie points out a different perspective on The Sims: "The goal of the game is up to the individual and it doesn’t have a clear ending which can be both good and bad. On the bad side the player may be unsatisfied if it’s just an endless path of creating new families and completing every career choice. But on the good side the game doesn’t feel rushed and stressful like other games were you are supposed to gather points or race against the clock in some way. While playing I felt like this was good because I didn’t feel much pressure to be skilled to be able to enjoy the game fully."

For many people The Sims is fun because it is a game that takes a lot of time, that it can relieve stress and become some sort of pass-time that is ultimately satisfying. Nellie describes The Sims as a game you don't really have to be skilled at to play, that it is enough to put in time and effort into it and the game will offer rewards. I still don't think that it makes my style of playing The Sims "cheating". I would say that we are essentially playing two different games when Nellie plays The Sim's the correct way and I play with the "cheat and destroy" tactic.

Monument Valley - delightfully puzzling musical illusions

I don't play games very often, but after hearing about Monument Valley I thought I that it might be up my alley. It was a pleasure to play, a game that with tantalizing sounds, visual effects, and simple mechanics creates a sublime experience. Each level contained a variety of special moments that were in their own way beautiful and amazing.


Monument Valley - "an illusory adventure of impossible architecture and forgiveness" - is a fairly easy puzzle game that doesn't take very long to complete. However, I don't think I was alone in getting absorbed in the gorgeous levels. The key mechanic entails rotating the levels in order to fit pathways together for the main character to access and press buttons that open up the next part of the level. This rotating mechanic is accompanied by musical audio feedback that feels like turning the crank on a music box. 


The levels are often designed in an impossible way reminiscent of works by Escher. The player has to forget normal physics and accept certain optical illusions as real in order to complete the level. I wouldn't describe this game as flashy; it is juicy in a subdued, more subtle way. The process of solving each puzzle is more like a delightful meditation than a beat-the-clock challenge. I often found that I was taking more time on the puzzle than I actually needed just so I could appreciate the beautiful forms from different perspectives and play with the different sounds to be made.  


The main character is a little princess in white with a pointy hat, while the "adversaries" - they mostly just get in the way, but can sometimes be used to help - are black crows that use basically the same forms except reversed. Each level uses balance, contrast, and interesting negative shapes to create an experience that doesn't get old and conveys a sense of graphical harmony. I don't think I ever felt lost in a level, as there were always clever visual cues indicating the next move. 

The sequence of 10 levels also included short texts at the beginning of each level that hinted at some sort of narrative and background story, but I was too absorbed in playing the levels to really pay too much attention to how it unfolded. Who the little princess is and what she is doing didn't really matter to me; the sounds and the graphics were enough to motivate me through the game. Perhaps playing the game a second time will unveil even more beautiful moments to be enjoyed.

Spoilsports and Cheaters - Not playing along vs. not playing fair

It's not difficult to find a game that you can cheat on or be a spoilsport. You can cheat on any game that has rules to be broken, spoken or unspoken. If the rules are programmed into the interface it might be more difficult. People can cheat in single-player games, but the act is more subversive if cheating against fellow players. I think that being a spoilsport requires that a game involves more than one person, so any multi-player game can be susceptible to spoilsports.

I'm ashamed to admit it but the last time I myself was a spoilsport was only a few months ago. My friend Marcus wanted to play Monopoly, and even though I have never enjoyed that game I went along with it. Marcus is a good friend. After about half-an-hour of gameplay I was already really hard on Monopoly cash and was having pretty bad luck (plus I am most definitely an awful Monopoly player). Then something in my brain switched and I simply gave up on the game. I kept playing but not with any effort to win. I just went through the motions of rolling the dice and moving my piece. Marcus noticed almost at once. The game was no longer fun for either of us. The magic circle was broken. I wish I would have tried a little harder to take the game more seriously so at least one of us could have enjoyed the game.

Here being a spoilsport was as simple as not playing to win. It seems that most if not all games are basically pointless if the players are not in agreement about the goal of the game. The goal doesn't necessarily have to be to win. When I was a kid I would play a lot of Super Smash Bros with my sisters, but sometimes we would just mess around and make up or own games within games that didn't have to do with blasting each other off the level. But it was not spoilsporting, as we were in agreement about ignoring the explicit goal of the game. The game was not what it was supposed to be, but there was still an illusion of gameplay that made it enjoyable for us.

"Favorite" game - Chrononauts

I want to begin by saying that I am no gamer. The height of my gaming career was during the days of the Nintendo GameCube when I binged on Super Smash Bros Melee with my sisters, but even then it wasn't that serious. Asking me what my favorite game is kind of like asking a dog person about their favorite breed of cat.

Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy playing games! But I would argue that I enjoy mainly multiplayer games, and usually not for any specific aspect of the game itself, but for the game's byproducts: the

joking, the debates, the unrelated discussions - that is to say the social interactions. I see a good game as an impetus for bringing people together (preferably in one physical place) and getting them to laugh, argue, lie, deceive, banter, and so on. I can't stand playing a game with someone who gets so absorbed in the mechanics of the game, who takes the goals of the game so seriously that the more dynamic, social, lighthearted side effects of gaming are blocked out by their competitiveness, their calculating.

With that said - a "favorite" game: Chrononauts. I've only played it once, and it was a few years ago. How can this be my favorite game? Well, it stands out in my memory as being a really fun experience (and there just aren't so many good gaming experiences to compete with it). The premise is that each player is a Time Traveler with a secret identity and a secret mission. The game is complicated enough that I didn't feel like I totally got it on the first couple rounds, but I got the impression that you could play it many more times without it getting boring. It has an engaging historical narrative, and it got us talking about history in a way I hadn't done in a long time. It's mechanics allow for a multitude of different outcomes and strategies. When I played with a few friends it felt like we achieved the "magic circle" of the game experience, but still remained present in our own social interactions outside the game, not getting too sucked up in the competition.

What was it about the game that enabled this kind of experience? Let's try an MDA (Mechanics, Dynamics, Aesthetics) analysis.

Mechanics:

* Read a much more in depth description of the rules here. This is just a summarization of the core mechanics.
- Players: 1-6

At the beginning of the game, each player gets an Identity Card and a secret Mission Card  that describes two types of goals that player can win by.

- 3 different ways to win. 1) Going home - alter the timeline so that the three key events on your identity card appear on the timeline; 2) Completing your mission - collect the three artifacts listed on your mission card; 3) Achieving power and success - have 10 cards in your hand at the end of your turn.

The timeline is made up of 32 cards laid out chronologically in a grid on the table. They each have a year and event, and there are two types, Ripple Cards and Linchpin Cards. Linchpin cards can be flipped to an alternate event by a player using an Inverter card on it. This causes ripples in the timeline, flipping the Ripple Cards that are dependent on that Linchpin and revealing a Paradox. These Paradoxes can and should be fixed by using a Patch Card that corresponds to that year, for if there are 13 Paradoxes at any time on the timeline, everyone loses :(

Quite a complex game now that I review it! But I felt that the instructions on the cards were clear and the concept of the game as a whole really held it together, making it easy to learn.

Dynamics:

- Having two secret missions to shoot for and three ways to win make the game endlessly exciting. Which one should I commit to? Is it in conflict with someone else's secret mission? Am I making it obvious what my mission is?

- Gadget Cards are special items that can help you later on and can come in really handy. They allow for longer strategies.

- Memos from your future self are a neat card that can be played at any time during the round. Playing a Memo cancels and discards the card just being played. They work as a good interactive moment between two players, maybe causing some conflict. They also require that players are especially attentive even when it isn't their turn.

- Keep track of other people's cards. If someone plays an artifact card that you are collecting, you must alter your strategy and adapt! (Or maybe use a certain Action Card to steal it).

There are many more dynamics to this game, these are just a few I recall.

Aesthetics:

The game creates an atmosphere that is secretive and sneaky which I really like. The whole game concept with the Identities, Missions, Timewarps, Paradoxes and so on work well to create a cohesive story of the game play. The actions players make start to feel like they have a deeper meaning, that we are actually Time Travelers changing history. There is a small chance factor in drawing the right cards, but I would say that winning nearly always requires quite a bit of strategizing. I remember that I won one game by Going home, and it was exquisitely satisfying. I also remember getting a Memo that wrecked my plans on making a winning move, and that was super frustrating but which was balanced out by the sneaky vengeance of doing the same thing back to my friend.

Reading up on Chrononauts makes me want to go buy the game, a very rare feeling for a non-gamer like me. Highly recommended!