Module: AG0982A - Creative Research

This blog documents my 3rd year research project at Abertay University. The focus of my research is on video game progression, tutorial design, and how to teach the player. My vision statement could be stated as such:

A game often needs to gradually introduce its mechanics and skills to the player. This needs to be done at such a pace that the player is neither anxious nor bored, and needs to be clear without sacrificing challenge. How can this balance be achieved? To investigate this, I've created a simple puzzle game, and released it to a sample of players. I can use data from their feedback to improve my game.

This issue came to my interest when I noticed that many games do a superb job of gradually teaching a player how to master a complicated system (such as Portal), while many other - often more complicated - games are lacking in comfortable and effective tutorship (such as Crusader Kings II), forcing players to resort to online wiki reading, and YouTube guides.

Saturday 5 March 2016

Creating the Survey

To gather data from the players who play my game, I'm using Google Forms to design a survey.

This survey will ask for general impressions on the game, and will also ask if the player feels that a level required skills from previous levels. Likely the most important fields in the survey, however, are ratings for difficulty and enjoyment. These are rated on a scale of 1-5 (5 being highest enjoyment, and highest difficulty. Also note that, arguably, ideal difficulty ratings are between 3 and 4 ('moderate' and 'difficult', where 5 is 'too difficult').


To remind players of the level I'm asking about in each section, I've provided an image. I hope this will be sufficient, and that players won't have trouble remembering 5 levels. Ideally, though, players would be rating each level immediately after they've completed a level.


With average difficulty and enjoyment ratings for each level, I'll be able to build an experience curve of my game.