External Playtest 2

Ben and his friends enjoying the game

External Playtest #2 was held on November 29, 2023 in the cafeteria of the main campus with Igor's friends in the Engineering, Archaelogy, and Information Media departments. Within the same playtest, each research pair within our development team has different preferences for recording their study and observations. The section in this page are divided by how each pair records their study.

Previous Playtest: External Playtest #1

Next Playtest: External Playtest #3

## Franciszek Ryt & Rajat Upadhayaya

### Objective:

For this playtest we wanted to make sure that the rules are understandable and the game is still playable even without the big knowladge of the game designing pricipales and overall high gaming experience. The key element was also to gather the tactics and the startegies that the player would come up while not being used to playing and creating games. It woudl allow us to make some observations of the people representing the majority of the borad game community - causal players.

* Player 3: Ben: red: dog, monkey, bunny, 18pts
* Player 2: Lisa: yellow: squirrel, panda, fox, 27pts
* Player 1: Marcus: purple: monkey, crane, fox, 17pts

### Process:

We have eased out on spotting the potential expanding points of the game and collecting observation based on the performance of the game itself. The only truly vital element was spotting the difficulties or vague point of the rulebook and almanac.

Notes from the playtest:

* respawn points rephrase,
* fix whatever Igor and Stan did
* how do we spawn the flags again - only ultimate or other too
* players are always strategizing how to make sure the player who is winning does not win, even if it means someone else is winning

### Research notes:

Player set up:

* yellow player has spawned themselves fully spread
* purple player was concise on one side of the board
* red one used 2 heroes and 1 hero set up

round 1:

* the deals have started due to the flag being spawned in one place
* yellow player has moved their heroes on flags, they were close
* purple player moved all of their heroes up to the centre of the board to have better wiggle room
* red player has moved to the centre of the board for the same reason (the infightings are none between the players who do not own any flags

round 2:

* yellow player has moved to the offensive, attacking with the fox and keeping the flags with the rest of the team (splitting into 2 and 1 tactic)
* purple player has killed the yellow fox with a combination of monkey and crane and the fox
* red player has built a wall on top of the point and the squirrel, has reached the ice heaven as a team

round 3:

* the minor flags has spawned once again on the earth heaven
* yellow player - spawn, hold the new flags
* purple player - displaced bunny via wall, they have spread their heroes
* red player - healing up the bunny, putting the snowstorm in the middle of the yellow team, getting the major flag

round 4:

* yellow - escaping the snowstorm, killing the red heroes with a link and a panda
* purple - displacing the yellow fox, taking the major flag from the red monkey, waiting with the fox
* red - spawn, spawn, displacing the crane from the flag

round 5:

* yellow - kills crane with a combo of panda and fox, squirrel takes the flag
* purple - spawn, blocking a major flag with a squirrel on it, and taking the flag with fox
* red - wall kill on yellow squirrel, bunny takes the flag

round 6:

* yellow - spawn, taking the flag with fox, and damaging the red bunny with panda
* purple - using wall do damage and block opponents from the centre, keeping the flag with the fox, and moving the crane away
* red - snowstorm on luces, jumping over another hero, taking a flag with the dog

round 7:

* yellow - double kill on red team, luces binding, panda and fox damaging
* purple - monkey takes the centre, crane takes minor flag
* red - spawn, spawn, monkey takes major flag

## Igor Sogorovecs & Stan Nguyen

### Previously, on Iteration 1.6...

Iteration 1.6 serves to address frustrating game systems identified from the previous In-Class playtest in the following manners:

* Friendly Fire is now an option. This should provide players with more opportunities for self-setting-up combos. This is also a small buff to gaining more points from Takedown without relying on Squirrel. (albeit a suicidal kind of attack)

### Aim

We wish to continue having the players pinpoint game systems, or lack thereof, which are inducive toward frustrations. The resulting game system can be completely new or a repeat of previously identified ones. We will also continue to monitor their behaviors, whether conscious or subconscious, as these behaviors carry psychological implications that survey response could not properly convey.

At this point, our pair has had a pretty clear grasp on what makes our game frustrating. The scope of the updates moving onto the final product will be kept small since everyone believes they have a clear grasp on answering their research question through the game.

### "Negative Remarks" Results

#### Player 1

A total of 2 negative remarks were recorded. All of which being:

* "I'm gonna kill your fox, Elsa."
* "It's time to kill your fox, Elsa."

#### Player 2

A total of 7 negative remarks were recorded. Some of which being:

* + In a quiet voice\* "Ah, fuck you."
* "Fuck you, my panda."
* "Yes, I said the dog, don't try to cheat!"

#### Player 3

A total of 15 negative remarks were recorded. Some of which being:

* "Wait what? You shuffled? [Player 1], she's already cheating!"
* "Don't you try to steal my Monkey!"
* "Hahaha, sucks to be you."
* "I am always at disadvantage, because I am always last."

### Playtest Notes

#### Set-Ups

* "They have cool quotes."
* "Does the hero change throughout the game?"
* "What does AoE mean?"
* The players all skipped the Board section in the component and put their heroes on Respawn tile on the first round.
* They initially picked the (10) to be the Major token, but corrected themselves.
* They didn't read into the Component section.

#### Playtime

* Players teaming up to capture flags together.
* Fia can jump over dark tiles.
* Regu can clip grey tiles, as long as it's not grey tiles.
* Earth Wall can clip inaccessible tiles.
* Should we have a clause about undoing decisions?
* Two players ganging up on the winner.
* The players spawn Major + Minor in addition to the Ultimate flag at the end.

### Interview Q&A

*What did you enjoy the most in the game?*

* Player 1: "Nice estethics. Fun concept."
* Player 2: "The way the characters worked together."
* Player 3: "The combo's you could do using multiple different characters."

*One word feeling?*

* Player 1: "Cool."
* Player 2: "Deep."
* Player 3: "Tactical."

*What did you feel most frustrating in the game? If no then what do you think would give other players frustration?*

* Player 1: "To not get possible flagspawns."
* Player 2: "It seemed like one of my opponents got a bit stuck in the game and the fact that that could happen seems frustrating."
* Player 3: "Dying was very annoying, especially as the squirrel made it very easy to get a double kill."

*If you can design this game, how would you make it fairer?*

* Player 1: "More heros so it is more balanced."
* Player 2: N/A
* Player 3: "I think the points for kills could be higher as it didn't feel very effective to kill."

*How much time did you feel like you were playing?*

* Player 1: "45 minutes of gameplay."
* Player 2: "I think it was a good amount of time but i dont know if it would have been faster or slower if we knew it better cause i dont know if we would have taken longer woth the moves because we were more strategically focused."
* Player 3: "It did not feel to long, I think it was somewhat influenced by us still figuring out how it worked the first round or so and therefore those rounds weren't played very tactically."

*Did you feel like you really hate what your opponent was doing?*

* Player 1: "Not really hate but it was hard to acummulate points from flags in two turns unless you was first to get there."
* Player 2: "No."
* Player 3: "No."

*What was your strategy?*

* Player 1: N/A
* Player 2: "To make soul chains and then attack and double kill!"
* Player 3: "Block enemies from getting to the flags and trying to get there myself."

*Did you feel like giving up at any point?*

* Player 1: "Well, it kinda snowballed into impossible very quick. I'm not a quitter tho."
* Player 2: "No, I was too good."
* Player 3: "We had quite a big gap in the points near the last round or so, so not necessarily giving up but i was aware I couldn't win anymore."

### Discussion

Based on the results of the "Negative Remarks" and our Interviews, we discovered that:

* A lack of comeback options frustrate players. This concerns the delay in Respawn, and not getting a flag spawn nearby.
* A lack of diversity to open up more tactics frustrate players.
* Killing is still not satisfying enough.

At this point, we do not have plan for any future playtests and thus satisfied with the knowledge we have learnt regarding game systems that cause frustrations in players.

## Emma Andersson & Sanna Helsing

*Due to not being able to observe the playtest, we do not have detailed notes for our section. The following are copied from the survey response we got for our research questions.*

*What made you choose your heroes?*

* Player 1: N/A
* Player 2: "I chose the fox because it was simple, i chose the panda because it seemed like i could be annoying and pull players away and i very much did not understand what the squirrel did but it sounded very cool and like it had a lot of strategic possibilities."
* Player 3: "They had fun sounding abilities and looked cute."

*What do you think about the character visuals?*

* Player 1: "Very good."
* Player 2: "Very cool and gave a good impression of what type of character it was."
* Player 3: "Very very very good"

*What was more interesting about the heroes, the mechanics or the visual?*

* Player 1: Visuals
* Player 2: Both
* Player 3: Both

*What about the heroes you chose is most appealing to you visually?*

* Player 1: "Regu"
* Player 2: N/A
* Player 3: "They just all had a very cool presence."

*Did you relate to any of the heroes? If so, what made them relatable?*

* Player 1: N/A
* Player 2: "Yeah, I feel like everyone could relate a bit to at least one hero, i think the art was done really well in such a way that it emphasized the temperament of the characters."
* Player 3: "Not really."

*Did you feel like the heroes had a personality? If so, do you think the personality comes from the visuals, the mechanics, both or something else?*

* Player 1: "Yes, mechanics. "
* Player 2: "Yes definately, very much what i said in the question above. I think it was definitely both the visuals and mechanics and the fact that they lined up really well in my opinion."
* Player 3: "It kinda fit what the characters could do with what they were but not necessarily personality, the quotes were fun tho."

*Do you feel like the visual design of each hero represents the mechanics?*

* Player 1: "Yes."
* Player 2: "Yes."
* Player 3: "I don't remember that much, I don't think that that was the case for all but definitely for some it was the case."

*Would you choose to play this game solely based on the visual design of the heroes?*

* Player 1: "No."
* Player 2: "That would definitely be a selling point."
* Player 3: "Yes!"