From audience feedback, the student learned:
1) Their initial game did not cater well to new players, so they added tutorial features like interactive tips.
2) Their target audience was ages 12-18, as determined by early surveys. Feedback showed they successfully hit this range.
3) Players responded positively to the mix of adventure and combat gameplay elements.
4) Their box art and magazine article needed simpler, less cluttered designs to appeal to young gamers.
What Gamers Taught Me: Lessons Learned from Audience Feedback
1. Evaluation Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?
All pictures can be found below the presentation
For this task I had to analysethe feedback I got when developing my game and then the end resultalongwith
my magazineand box art. I did this by conductingseveral audiencefeedback tasks throughout the
development process and then 2 at the end. I tried to use different forms of audiencefeedback throughout
startingwith a play session of my game after all of my core gameplay mechanics where added and then
moving onto quizzes on survey monkey.
Before we even started developingthe game we conducted some research into what age ratingand features
people liked in this type of game, we used survey monkey to conduct a quizand spread it among our peers for
audiencefeedback. We got quite a lot of feedback to baseour information on.
As you can see we conducted this test around 6/30/2014 before development, to get a better idea of the kind
of audience we were trying to reach. We started with age becausethis would determine how mature our
content had to be and to make surewe aimed it atthe correctaudience.
From thiswe determinedthatour
target audience wouldbe age 12-18
whichwe suspected.We finally
decidedthata age 15 ratingwould
be suitable because itallowedusto
alsocater for the higherages
playerswithoutrunningintoany
legal problems.
Afterwe determinedourage range
and that we wouldhave amajority
mail audience we movedonto
othertestssuch as whatwas the
mostpopularstyle of game and
thenincorporateditintoourgame.
We addedadventure aspectsand
combat intoour game to bettersuit
our targetaudience
2. After my research into what type of game we should build wethen conducted research on the actual game to
get some feedback from our audience. My initial feedback was from a small play session of my game, this was
in the early stages and I have no documentation of it. After the testing we were told that our game doesn’t
cater for the newer player,we had let our personal gamingexperience influencethe way we developed our
game which was something we had to change. We started by addingseveral new features a round the game
and because this is the firstlevel we used it as sortof a tutorial section rather than a full blown level.We
started with addingbillboardsaround themap above levers and such to let the player know itis important.
These are two examples of what we used to display our tips,this computer Is found in the opening room and
to make the tips not so intrusivewe included iton a computer screen which once clicked displaysthe right
message. We did this becausewe wanted to cater to players who were not new to, not justdesign our game
for one specific kind of gamer.
As well as this feedback we also contacted another survey monkey after our game had been complete, this
was to see if we targeted our audiencecorrectly.We asked several questions on this survey monkey which
were all directly atpeople who had previously played the game. We started by askingwhatage bracket our
players fell into to see if we had correctly identified our audiencein out pre-research.
We attemptedtoswingthe age
bracketto the higheravenge player
inthe 13-18 bracketwhichwe
succeededtodoand we even
enteredthe 18-24 bracket. We had
successful hitourtargetaudience
and evenenhanceditwhichwould
allow usto carry on the same design
withour nextgame
We thenaskedouraudience what
was the mostappealingaspectof
our game and we got a evenreview
on all aspects,thistellsusthatour
game didnot have any obvious
featureswhichletitdownandthat
we got an excellentmix of all
features.
3. Overall fromour feedback we determined that we were successful in meeting our target audience and that is
was enjoyableto play. To finalisethis we asked one more question.
After the game feedback we moved on to our magazine / box artfeedback. Consideringthis was our firstgame
we had to make sureit was appealing,an interestingfeed and successfully targeted our audience. Below is my
box art:
We thenconductedthe same testas
above butfor specificgame
features,andagainwe detecteda
nice mix of reviewswhichtolduswe
dida successful jobatappealingto
our targetaudience.Popupswhich
were mostlyforthe tutorial hadthe
lowestreviewwhichiswhatwe
expectedsince theyonlycateredto
the newerplayer.
To gather feedbackaboutmybox art ratherthan
preformingapublicsurveyIaskedseveral of my
classmatesto rate the cover andthentell me what
theyliked/dislikedaboutit.Igot a total of 8
differentresponsesandmanagedtoaltermycase
accordingly.The feedbackcanbe downbelow
4. After my feedback I was told that my casewas way to clustered, I had several ratings on the front of the case
alongwith some other text scattered around.I considerably dialled back the caseand went with a simplistic
look rather then trying to put to much information on.The front justshows a boss and our title which indicates
several things such as combatand good vs evil and my back shows game features and a short blurb which tells
the user what the game is about, I was told this was a much more beneficial design to my audienceas I was
targeting young gamers so they might be reluctantto read itall and itwould deter some users.
After this I conducted feedback on my magazine article,I decided not to conduct research on my magazine
cover because PC gamer is such a bigmagazine the front cover will not make much of a difference becauseof
it being a subscription magazine,I tried however to go for a same design as my casebeen simplistic,here is the
front cover:
My double page magazinearticlewas mainly aimed atpeople who already knew about the game from passing
but didn’thave any major information,I was sold that my magazinearticlefeatures all the correct information
which was needed but my design was rather crude and I should go for a more user friendly design which was a
lot more pleasantto look atrather than jampacked full of information.
Thisis myfinal magazine cover,i wastoldthat the
informationwasrelevantandaninterestingreach
but the designwasnotappealingonjusta black
backgroundso I decidedtoadda space feel
because of the game beingSCI-FIandI was told
that thisbrightenedthe article up andmade it
much more pleasanttolookat.