FMP Research

1. Research
Your Name

2. Existing Product
Oxygen Not Included (2017) is a colony sim game. Developed by
Klei Entertainment.
One of the things that the game does right is the character trait
system, each character you get in the game will have a positive
and negative trait, the positive traits usually make them great at
one task while the negative trait makes them unfit for another.
Another thing the game does well is the research system as it
allows new concepts to be introduced at a more easily
manageable rate. also, as the game progresses research times
become longer causing the player to explore what they have
researched in order to speed it up.
One issue that I found with the game was the complexity, the
mechanics were fairly fun to explore and use but they were
poorly explained causing many hours of confusion.
Another issue I found was that when you make a mistake, either
due to user error or lack of understanding, it can quite easily
cause the end of your play-through causing the player to start
from scratch.

3. Existing Product
Stardew valley (2016) is a game created by Eric Barone.
One of the things that the game does well is the use of
colour. The world feels vibrant and whimsical which can
make the player feel safe and calm.
Another thing the game does well is the music, most of the
music sounds peaceful and inspiring which works well with
the gameplay.
One of the things that the game doesn’t do as good is the
progression, from the start of the game the player is able
to get most items with minimal effort and although there is
a primary objective to the game this can be completed in a
relatively short amount of time which could lead to the
player running out of things to do.
Stardew Valley Soundtrack

4. Existing Product
Dark souls 2 (2014) is a game developed by From
Software
One of the things the game does well is the world, the
world is vast and varied with each area feeling
different and unique. Many of the areas introduce new
enemies and mechanics that are exclusive to the area
which creates unique and interesting challenges for
the player to overcome.
Another thing that the game gets right is the combat,
the bosses in dark souls are challenging and intense,
due to the camera being up close to the player
character it allows the player to become more invested
in the combat which then leads to the player feeling a
greater sense of satisfaction when they defeat a
difficult boss or enemy.

5. Existing Product
The Legend of Zelda (1986) is a game developed by
Nintendo.
One of the things that the game does well is the
interface, it is very easy to read and understand
which makes the game suitable for people of a
wide range of ages.
Another thing the game does well is the
exploration, the map is huge and filled secrets
allowing the player to feel a sense of discovery
throughout the game.
One of the more negative aspects of the game is
the lack of guidance, the player might find
themselves lost often or confused as to where they
should go next.
The final negative I have for the game is that it can
feel very repetative, with many enemies being
recolors of previous ones. However, this is more a
limit of the hardware than a conscious decision.

6. Research Analysis
• What common features do the researched
products have?
– The games all have a theme of exploration
• What aspects of the research will you include
within your work?
– I intend to use colour to convey safety and danger
to the player
– I will use what I have learnt to make exploration
feel good.

7. Questionnaire
Analysis
Survey Monkey Link:

8. Audience research
• Observation: 4 of the 6 people surveyed were 16.
• What this says about my audience: the most consistent age of the people
surveyed was 16, the rest were 17.
• How will your product appeal to this audience: my product will feature similar
mechanics to other games targeted at people 16 and over. The product will also
provide a significant challenge while staying fun and entertaining.

9. Audience research
• Observation: 83% of my audience is male, 17% is female
• What this says about my audience: the majority of my audience is
probably male
• How will your product appeal to this audience: exploration will be a
major aspect of the game; this content typically appeals more to a
male audience.

10. Audience research
• Observation: 50% the people surveyed have not played a colony
sim game, however the other 50% have.
• What this says about my audience: my audience might be new to
the genre
• How will your product appeal to this audience: I will make a tutorial
of the mechanics that is understandable to new players

11. Audience research
• Observation: 67% of people said they prefered quick and dynamic combat.
• What this says about my audience: They might prefer the combat to be
more fast paced
• How will your product appeal to this audience: I will try to increase the
speed at which combat happens while still trying to keep to the standards
of the genre which tends to be slow and tactical

12. Audience research
• Observation: People are willing to pay a wide range of prices.
• What this says about my audience: My audience may not be willing
to spend a larger amount of money on a game (over £30).
• How will your product appeal to this audience: I think I would price
my game at £10-£20 to appeal to a wide audience.

13. Audience research
• Observation: 83% of people think the setting is important
• What this says about my audience: They probably believe
that the setting is crucial to the success of a game
• How will your product appeal to this audience: I will focus
on making my world feel interesting and alive

14. Audience research
• Observation: 83% of the people surveyed prefer fantasy games over
sci-fi
• What this says about my audience: my audience might prefer a
fantasy setting
• How will your product appeal to this audience: I will make my game
in a fantasy setting

15. Audience research
• Observation: 67% of people associate colony sim games with dark colours
• What this says about my audience: my audience might be bored of most
colony sim games being dark
• How will your product appeal to this audience: I will go the opposite
direction with my colour scheme to make something that is new and
appealing to the target audience.

16. Audience research
• Observation: 67% of people associate colony sim games with being
underground
• What this says about my audience: this suggests that my audience
associate colony sim games with being underground.
• How will your product appeal to this audience: I will feature and
underground area within my trailer.

17. Audience research
• Observation: A majority of the people surveyed think that music is
necessary in a game demo
• What this says about my audience: My audience would probably
respond better to my game demo if it had music
• How will your product appeal to this audience: I will try and add
music to my game demo

18. Interviews

19. Interview Questions
1: What would draw your attention to a colony sim
game?
2: What would you consider to be the most
important mechanics? (for example: farming,
combat, building)
3: What features would you like to see in a new
colony sim game?
4: Do you think a colony sim game could work in a
fantasy setting? Why or why not?
5: What would keep your interest in a colony sim
game?

20. Interview 1
1: I would like it to have colourful graphics and interesting characters/story.
2: Combat is one of the most important mechanics in all games so I think it
would be combat.
3: I would like a more interesting combat system and perhaps mini games that
are aim intensive.
4: I think it would work with fantasy really well.
5: Multiplayer is always an important feature I don't really play single player
games. Also content updates regularly.

21. Interview 1
• Observation: they want to have multiplayer as they find them more
enjoyable.
• What this says about my audience: The suggestion of multiplayer
was interesting and useful. There aren't many colony sim games
which feature multiplayer as an option, the only one that comes to
mind is "Colony Survival". I believe that adding multiplayer into the
game would be possible but difficult to get right due to the
limited number of characters and the fact there may be a lot of
waiting around. This is something I will give further thought to.
• How will your product appeal to this audience: I will hopefully
produce a plan to add some form of multiplayer support.

22. Interview 2
1: Being able to build up something and make it my own is what's
appealing about a colony sim game.
2: Combat as if the combat isn't interesting enough it makes the farming
and building worthless.
3: I would like more character customization for the npcs.
4: I would love a colony sim game in a fantasy setting and I think it
would work perfectly and add an interesting spin into the already developed
colony genre.
5: Some form of multiplayer can make me play the game for longer
as i can comminucate and work with my friends.

23. Interviews
• Observation: they see combat as vital to their
enjoyment of the game.
• What this says about my audience: Combat was
named as the most important system in both
interviews, this shows that I should focus on
making the combat system fun a priority.
• How will your product appeal to this audience: I
will make sure that I spend a good amount of
time making the combat system feel fun and
challenging.

24. Audience Profile
Category Demographic Content to appeal to this audience
Age Range
Primary: 18-28
Secondary: 14-18
• Complex and interesting mechanics
Gender
Primary: Male
Secondary:
Female
• The games that have inspired this one are
primarily targeted towards a male audience
Psychographic
Primary:
Belongers
Secondary:
Emulators
• The game will hopefully build an online
community which might attract people of
this psychographic
Social Status
Primary: Working
Class
Secondary: Middle
Class
• Low system requirements
• Affordable price

25. Research
Evaluation

26. Research Evaluation
• Give an overview of how you conducted your research. Discuss the strengths
and weaknesses of each method
– Product Research:
I took four existing products and broke down some of the positives and negatives of those
games. Looking at existing products helped me think through my ideas and will hopefully
allow me to make a better game. One weakness is that there have been occasions where I
looked at a game less objectively making my analysis feel more like a review.
– Questionnaires
I made 10 questions and sent them out to the rest of the class over Microsoft Teams. I
believe this to be the weakest of the methods, some of the questions weren't good and
didn't provide any useful information. One of the strengths of the questionnaires was that it
reinforced some of the ideas I was unsure of.
– Interviews
I wrote down some qualitive questions and sent them to people in the class. Asking open-
ended questions allowed me to gain more information on a person's opinion. A strength of
this method is that you can usually ask follow up questions, I however did not do this. A
weakness of this method is that finding a relevant party with sufficient knowledge and
thought-out opinions may be difficult to find.

27. Research Evaluation
– What sort of a response did you get?
From the survey I got a fairly consistent response to most questions; most of the
questions had an answer with a majority of the votes.
From the interviews I got a consistent response, for example both people said a
multiplayer mode would be good.
– How did you distribute your survey? Give an advantage and a disadvantage
I distributed the survey through teams, this was good as it got the survey to
multiple people, but a disadvantage was that I couldn't control who answered the
survey potentially leading to misleading information. A better way of distributing
it might be sending it to specific people who are interested in the genre, I would
do this by sending it to friends.