Week #4: alternative low-fidelity prototype

With the COVID-19 outbreak, the user testing of the low-fidelity prototype had to be unconvencional but the show must go on! I developed a parallel prototype.  

I made a chess-like prototype on powerpoint in order to be able to have players interacting via livestream. You can find two user testing rounds in the follow video:

THE ANSWERS

How does the initial position impact the game’s pace? Should the player be able to stand still in a safe spot? 

• 1st round - the player had safe tiles where no enemy could reach and started on one of those
• 2nd round - the player started on a tile on a guard’s path and had no safe tiles

One of the players said that on stealth games, he likes to stand still on the initial position until he understands the enemy’s routine. That player, on the 1st round, took longer on each movement, standing still on spots he knew he was safe. On the second round, his strategy was no longer about careful planning, but about risky movement. He was caught by enemies a lot more. 

Conclusion: we want ‘2036’ to give opportunity to both playstyles to succeed so it’s important to have safe spots and the initial position should allow the player to observe the scene before engaging. 

How does the number of enemies impact the player’s strategy? What does each type of enemy add to the game?

• Level 1 – three guards 
• Level 2 – one guard, two drones
• Level 3 – two guards, two cameras, one drone

Players had no problem getting through the three guards, as they found their paths more predictable and avoidable.  When adding two drones, the difficulty increased significantly, since the drone detects on every direction. The players took longer to get through the level and were caught more often. The third level turn out to be of extreme difficulty, as none of the players were able to get to the objective without being caught at least once. All players avoided the area patrolled by the two guards, had difficulty not being caught by them (that were very close to each other) and struggle to find an opening between the two cameras. 

Conclusion: 

• the more human guards a level has, the more cautious the players are, since their pacing is quicker than the drone's and not static like the cameras.
• the drone detection area is very punishing when close to other enemies. It would be important to either change the type of detection or to isolate the drones.
• the cameras are a good tool to make the strategy more urgent, as the timing is shorter. 

What does the cover mechanic add to the game?

At the end, it was introduced a variation of Level 3, where there were two boxes serving as cover.

All the players used the cover system and it significantly change the playstyle of the more fast-paced oriented players, as they took longer, hiding behind the covers, to decide their movements. The slow-paced strategy-oriented players made it to the objective quicker. 

Conclusion: 

1. The cover mechanic made all players take a more calculative rather than impulsive approach (even though they could make it to the objective with the impulsive approach). Since we want to give the player the freedom to choose how to get through the level, we should separate the players’ path with covers from the path where the player could rush through.
2. Since the boxes don’t serve as cover for the drones (and they have more erratic routines), the players were more focus on that type of enemy. A good idea would be to give the impulsive players a path filled with drones.

THE PROTOTYPE GAME RULES

LEVELS