DOSE: PLAY TEST 2

Warning- The following may contain spoilers.

On May 12th Interworld Games did a play test with our colleagues Savannah College of Art and Design Game Development majors. A total of 14 responses left us with good critique and helpful tips to make the game more enjoyable for players.

Even though the game was only partially set dressed with no new cutscenes, all the tech updates from previous Sprints had been implemented, allowing players the ability to finish the game in its current state.

The students were asked to answer questions by rating them on a scale from one to ten, then follow up their judgement with more precise feedback.

Listed below are the questions asked to the play testers and the most common results and solutions:

Was the shadow or doctor enemy too easy or too difficult?
Mixed reviews.
Two people said they were perfect difficulty.
About half said that the shadow teleport is too strong, and he can teleport too close to the player.
A few people said to remove him as a presence when doing the bell puzzle.
A few people said he was confusing narratively.
Two people said the doctor was too easy because you can walk right past him.
One person said the shadow was just annoying.
Solutions:
Edit the shadow so that he does not teleport too close to the player
Narratively, he will be present in cutscenes but animation is not currently done for that to be implemented yet.
Remove him from the bell puzzle and playtest that area with the new bell sounds and see if it is too easy or difficult.
Move the find the key puzzle to in the room with the doctor to force the player to have to spend more time in the room with him, instead of walking in and out.
Did you enjoy playing the game?
Consistent Reviews
All responses with comments were between 5-9.
A few people said it was suspenseful and exciting.
All responses between 5 and 7 were commented as incompleteness.
A few responses between 5 and 7 said the lack of current art assets and narrative cutscenes made it too confusing to enjoy.
Solutions
Set dress and implement cutscenes
Did you understand the objective of the game?
Answers extremely varied. 2-10.
Many didn’t comment
A few said yes, knew Dara was a recovering addict and wanted to escape the hospital
One person completely understood that she was trying to reunite with family (this happened with one person in our previous playtest, the tester had no interaction with the game previously.)
The majority of people said they thought so, but didn’t understand why Dara wanted to leave the hospital.
One person mentioned they didn’t realize for a while the pills hindered the shadow.
Solutions
When set dressing make sure Rapunzel book is in an easy to see place as foreshadowing.
Use art and visuals to make the hospital more uneasy and scary
Possibly add blood stains.
Possibly record more lines from Dara about the hospital to implement with environmental assets.
Implement the cutscenes and endings
Implement the cutscene that explains pills slow enemies.
Were the completed elements of the narrative clear?
Varied Answers
Majority of people said yes they thought the completed elements were understandable
A few people said they always knew what they were looking for
One person said they did not get them and was lost.
A few people said the dialogue was clear and helpful.
One person really liked the antagonist whispering in the player's ear as instructions.
One person said the narrative felt forced.
Solutions
At this stage, there is little we can do to update the narrative except for little things.
Implement our art assets and cutscenes that explain the narrative
Same as above question about objective.
Was the game overall appropriately challenging?
Majority of answers 7-10
Most people said it was appropriately challenging.
About half mentioned the shadow AI was a little too difficult.
Two people mentioned taking out the AI during the bell puzzle.
One person said we hit the sweet spot between puzzles and avoidance challenges.
One person said the puzzles weren’t challenging but the AI was.
One person said the game felt gimmicky.
Solutions
Edit teleport on the shadow AI to make him a little easier.
By majority the puzzles seem like they are at a good spot once the new bell sounds are put in.
Did you get lost in levels?
Extremely varied 1-10

Two people said the hospital was clear.

One person said the hospital was confusing, but in a good way.
Two people said the forest was confusing, but one mentioned it will probably be fine when set dressed.
One person said the hospital was confusing
One person said they didn’t know to go to the door with the flowers to leave the hospital.
One person said only in the maze then erased it.
One person said not at all.
One person said they thought they were supposed to do something at the witch’s hut.
Solutions
Set dress. The plaques next to doors with door numbers and titles of rooms will help.
Forest pathways will help.
There is part of required dialogue that tells the player what door to go to to leave. Adding a plaque with title would help.
If time allotted, add an audio cue from Dara at the Witch's hut saying "It's locked." or "No one is home."
Were the controls intuitive?
Consistent Answers
A few people said they liked them and they were pretty standard.
Two people mentioned to add a prompt that says to press E to continue to the choices after a dialogue.
One person said they didn’t realize they could sprint.
A few people mentioned the dialogue system had a few interactions missing
Two people said the notes and dialogue actors sometimes popped up at the same time. One person suggested changing it from collision based to ray tracing.
One person mentioned it was hard to get the note actor off the screen.
One person said when they skipped ahead the previous audio file overlapped (we could not recreate this issue so far to fix).
One person said move the pill use to a different key, as they hit it a few times on accident while trying to press E.
Solutions
Add a prompt on the dialogue hud that tells they player they can press E to continue.
Add a prompt to tell the player they can sprint, however unsure where to do this.
Double check all interactions in dialogue actor and update audio files, etc.
Investigate raytracing and switch to in a separate file. Migrate in if it works.
Make the same control changes to the note actor that was done to nthe dialogue so it is not hard to remove from the screen.
See if a new key for the pill works better. If so change all code and Hud and other assets to new key.
Were there any bugs?
Most people pointed out one or two
One person said the dialogue actor was a bit buggy, use ray tracing.
One person said spamming Q at the opening cutscene will crash the game.
One person said Q does not skip the opening cutscene.
One person said just a little laggy.
One person said the when taking the rampion the pill counter jumps really high, but other times did not.
One person mentioned the collision on the rampion does not get turned off after you pick it up.
Someone said he broke the antagonist’s dialogue in the hospital somehow
Someone said the statue going through the maze walls looked like a bug.
Someone said the collision on the pick up items in the forest was difficult
Someone said they overdosed no matter how long he waited (?)
One person said the cutscene overlapped with itself.
One person said add doorframes.
Solutions
Check raytracing and implement if able.
Investigate Q to skip.
Optimize code to reduce lag
Investigate rampion pill pick up. Edit code as needed
Turn off rampion collision after you pick up.
Try to replicate breaking dialogue and fix.
Add art assets and sound to give feedback that the statue is going through the thorn buses.
When adding art assets to pick up items, fix collison
Check overdose and investigate if needed.
Although it doesn’t have to do with bugs, we can add doorframes for art assets.
Did the pill mechanic make sense?
Responses were varied evenly between yes and no.
A few people said introduce how it works better, such as adding a tutorial, and explain how it affects the AI.
Someone said “restrict it to once its time. I wasted mine in the hospital”
Someone mentioned they don’t feel any repercussions for using the pills.
A quite a few left the comments blank and circled 9 or 10.
One person said the story context is convoluted.
Someone said they wished the pills had a meter so you could tell when you are overdosing
Someone said they thought maybe the pills made you see another dimension, if so more objects need to change.
Solutions
Making changes to the doctor enemy by adding the key as stated earlier to function as the tutorial as we intended.
Reimplement a few of the Rampion pick ups in the forest and maze.
Make sure it is clear that the pills represent her abuse of prescription medicine.
Double check post processing volume with final lighting to make sure it is easy to tell when you are overdosing.
The pills do not let you see another dimension, but more objects need to subtly change in the hospital as you go through it, and there needs to be a few more hospital assets in the forest (not too obvious).
Did you use many pills?
Responses were majority 5+ pills
Most people said they used more than 5 pills.
One person specified 12 pills.
Two people said 4, one of them said they only used them for exploration purposes
A few people felt there was not enough reward for not using them
Two people said they used them mostly in the maze.
Two people said they overdosed a lot.
Someone said there are not hints on the second puzzle
One person said they took 2 then “overdosed throughout the whole game”
One person said they overdosed a lot but didn’t need to take them, then took them for puzzles but only because they thought they needed to.
Solutions
Our goal of the majority using five to seven pills the first time through the game was met.
Make sure that the AI is still difficult enough to cause players to use the pills after we fix his teleporting problem.
Check parameters for overdosing again.
The maze seemed like the hardest part, which is good since it it supposed to be the climax of the game.
Check that the render custom depth is on for the items in the second puzzle.
Unsure what “only took 2 but overdosed through the whole game” means. They took 2 then there was a glitch that repeatedly kills them? They took two then started taking more and kept over dosing? Unsure. Investigate taking two pills to overdose and make sure it is 3 very close together, and the post processing shows.

We are ready to fix all the problems presented and already have gotten pretty far on the task list that came from this play test. Keep checking back for more updates!