Controller trollers test report 1115

Once Legendary
Usability Testing & Analysis
[Version 0.0.1.105716]
Jeff Houchens, Dakota Daugherty, Kyle Devlin, Jon Capps
November 20, 2015
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents…………………………………………………………..2
Executive Summary……………………………………………………….3
Methodology………………………………………………………………...3
Testing Procedure……………………………………………………..3
Test Subject Demographics…………………………………………5
Summary of Testing Results………………………………………..5
Impression Questions…………………………………………………..10
Exploratory Questions………………………………………………….11
Prologue………………………………………………………………...11
Chapter 1………………………………………………………………..11
Chapter 2………………………………………………………………..12
Chapter 3………………………………………………………………..13
Directive Questions (Development Team)...........................13
Game Bugs Encountered by Playtesters……………………...14
Data Collection…………………………………………………………….15
Graphs of Data Acquired…………………………………………..17
Issues Encountered by Testing Team……………………………..18
Analysis……………………………………………………………………...25
Recommendations……………………………………………………….27
Post Mortem………………………………………………………………..28
References………………………………………………………………….29

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Executive Summary
We have compiled our findings and testing notes in this document to help the
development team, Team Zulu, better understand what is working in their game and
what is not. We hope the data collected in this report will help prepare Team Zulu,
and their game Once Legendary, for a future release. Throughout this document we
will define our tester demographics, testing procedure used, issues found , bug
feedback, analysis, recommendations, and more for Team Zulu.
An overview of our testing feedback proves that:
1. Players need helpful hints to show them the initial movement controls at the
beginning of the prologue level.
2. Enemies do little to no damage and are not a significant threat to the player.
3. With 64% of deaths in Chapter 3 from cannonball fire, the cannonball size
and speed is a significant challenge and frustration point.
4. Each boss needs a health bar to give the player visibility to system status
(Nielsen, 1995).
5. Controlling the sword movement is unfamiliar to testers and isn’t a strong
match between the system and the real world (Nielsen, 1995).
Methodology
Testing Procedure
I. Designate testing station
A. Standard PC with Windows 7 Home/Professional OS
B. Standard Mouse & Monitor
C. Xbox controller for PC or Standard Keyboard
D. Confirm Audio Source is audible
II. Ask tester Demographic Questionnaire
A. “What genre of games do you normally play?”
B. “How many hours per week do you play video games?”
C. “Would you consider yourself a casual or hardcore gamers? Why?”
D. “How well do you do in 2D games (side-scrollers)?”
III. Download Once Legendarybuild 0.0.1.105716
IV. Launch Once Legendary
V. Instruct tester to sit in front of Monitor
VI. Instruct tester to review Game Menu and Directories
A. Ensure tester does not click New Story
B. Ensure tester does not click Continue Story
C. Tester can click Table of Contents, but not Check Points
VII. Ask Impression Questions

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A. “How does the menu compare to other games? Is it easy to navigate?”
B. “What does the title make you think is game about?”
C. “Does the naming convention of the title screen match other game
title menus?”
VIII. Instruct tester to click New Story
IX. Tester should play and complete each level.
A. Note progress blockers, emotions and player choices
B. Ask Exploratory Questions during and after each level
1. Prologue
a) “Do you find the sound effects bothersome or amusing?”
b) “Is the level easy, in your opinion, to progress through
and complete?
2. Chapter 1
a) “Did you like controlling the sword instead of the
player? Why or why not?”
b) “How does the difficulty of the enemies compare to
similar side-scrolling games you’ve played?”
3. Chapter 2
a) “What did you find most interesting about this level?
Why?”
b) “What was the most difficult part of this level? Why?”
4. Chapter 3
a) “How difficult was it to dodge the cannonballs?”
b) “How difficult or frustrating was it to dodge the
cannonballs?”
C. Note game bugs encountered
X. Ask Directed Questions
XI. End Testing Session, thank tester

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Test Subject Demographics
Test
Subject
Age Gender Game
Experience
Game
Genre
Preference
Hours
playing
games per
week
Tested
By
Michael 15 Male FPS,
Sandbox,
Side
Scroller
FPS 12 Jeff H
Sydney 23 Female Minimal Arcade 4 Kyle D.
Lucas 20 Male Average Simulator 20 Dakota D.
Derrick 25 Male Average FPS 8 Jon C.
Summary of Testing Results
Michael
Prologue:Michael initially laughed at the storybook pictures after he clicked
“New Story”. Once the character loaded on the screen, Michael did not know how to
move the character and spent the first minute or so trying to figure it out. He used
the mouse and the keyboard arrow keys to no avail. The tester had to instruct him
how to move the character so he could continue the level. At the first pendulum
floor trigger, he simply jumped over it. When Michael died at one of the pits, and the
character was reset to the previous checkpoint, he commented that the checkpoint
was so far away from where he died. At the dual trigger area, Michael immediately
noticed that the trigger colors correspond with the doors they opened. Opposed to
the testers testing, Michael did not die at the thorn drop down area.
Chapter 1:At the first “Slam”, Michael commented that he didn’t know what
to do and there was no way to do this (slam the board to break it). After a minute of
pressing random buttons, he was ready to give up. The tester had to step in and give
him a hint (pressing down and “K”). The tester also noticed that Michael had to
move his head close to the monitor and squint his eyes to try and read the next
pop-up instruction window indicating the font may be too small for smaller
monitors. At the waterfall area, Michael clicked the switch to move the platform
closer so he could proceed, but he fell into the pit and died. When the character was
reset to the checkpoint, Michael noticed with a little frustration in his voice that he

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had to activate the switch over again. At the platform that requires the player to
jump and double tap/hold “W”, Michael was getting frustrated and was again about
to give up because he was only double tapping “W” and did not jump. The tester had
to again step in and give him a hint to jump so he could proceed. For the boss fight,
Michael commented it’s annoying and takes too long. He didn’t understand why the
flying bunnies were too high since they couldn’t be Riposted.
Chapter 2:Throughout the level, Michael was jumping randomly. When
asked why, he said that it makes moving a lot faster. Michael’s body language
during the level showed that he was very bored. At the jumping platforms, he kept
slipping off and dying. Michael commented that, if the guy had shoes, he might have
better traction.
Chapter 3:Michael hardly killed any mobs on this level, especially the large
cylinders, archers and birds. He simply ran through them without trying to dodge
or riposte the arrows or eggs. Michael commented that he was going to try and just
speed run through the level. When he reached the first cannonballs, Michael died
over and over again. He commented that the cannonballs are very frustrating and
that he wishes there was a way to get on top of the platforms above. Michael also
commented that it’s so hard to react to the cannonballs with as little time as he has
when they appear on the screen. After 32 deaths, the character got stuck on a
cylinder mob and Michael couldn’t move. He was very frustrated and quit playing
here.
Sydney
Prologue: Sydney had trouble figuring out how to move the character
initially. She stated that there really needed to be an on-screen box that would
explain the controls at first. She was also not accustomed to the “esc” key being the
menu key. Once she found the controls menu, she thought that “B” for bloodlust was
a bit distant from the other keys, but understood why it was B because of the name.
She then proceeded to test the new controls out. She soon tripped the character and
couldn’t figure out how to make him stand back up. After several minutes and
looking at the controls menu several times, she had to ask for help. When told it was
solved by pressing “W”, she commented that it was never explained that it was the
way to stand up in the menu.
As she progressed through the level, she found the voice-overs amusing. She
did laugh at the kid talking to the grandpa though. She continued to fall over, finally
exclaiming that “This hero needs to learn to stay on his feet! This is so stupid, why
does he have to always fall over?!” This was a major point of frustration for Sydney
throughout the playtesting session. She explained afterwards that she felt it was
unnecessary and would annoy any serious gamer who played the game easily.

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She understood quickly that “L” was used to activate pillars, after listening to
the voice-over. She explained it was a cool way to give controls help by doing it
through a cut-scene or voice-over. She regularly wondered what the “little blue
flame things…” were and why they were present. She at first thought they were
trying to show her how to play, but thought they were random after seeing them
enough. Finally she made it to the part where the player must fall through the
double-sided walls of thorns.
The double thorn wall part was the most challenging part of the level for
Sydney by far. She noticed that it was made extremely challenging because the
player character, “slides around like he’s on ice even when I stop moving.”, that the
jumping controls were “very delayed, which makes timing the jumps difficult.”, and
that, “The air controls are loose. Which makes the thorn part nearly impossible.”
After she finally beat the double thorn wall part, after roughly 30 minutes, she
stated that it took most of the fun out of the level, which to that point had been
amusing.
Chapter 1: After moving around for only a few seconds, Sydney commented
on how weird controlling the sword felt. Next she encountered the part that expects
the player to attack down to break the floor. She had to search for how to even move
down, and noted that this was not explained in the controls menu. It took a minute,
but she finally figured out the “S” key was down, after pressing several keys on the
keyboard. She noted that the down attack, used to break floors etc., doesn’t work
exactly like the explanation box says. After using the down attack a few times, she
mentioned that it felt weird to do and didn’t fit any kind of control scheme she had
used in previous games.
During one voice-over her character was paralyzed, but enemies were still
able to attack her during the voice-over, and ended up killing the character before it
was finished. Her remarks on this being possible were that it was “So stupid that I
couldn’t move, but enemies could still attack me during the voice-over.” The
checkpoint before the “You’re boring grandpa…” voice-over were commented as
being “Way too far apart.” and the voice-over playing every time was noted to be an
annoyance.
Once she reached the waterfall portion of the level, she was extremely
confused on how to get across the waterfall. Since there aren’t any explanations
about using double-tap moves with the “W” key, she couldn't figure out how to beat
this part. It eventually had to be explained and was noted that there needed to be an
indication of how to use “W” in that fashion before you entered that part of the level.
Sydney stated often that, “A way to heal myself somehow would be nice, and make it
a little easier to play.”

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Sydney then reached the final boss cube at the end of the level. After dying a
few times, she remarked that it was difficult to tell how injured the boss was
without any HP bars. It was also never explained that she was supposed to riposte
the flying small white cubes back at the boss cube to do damage. This eventually had
to be explained and was noted that it should have been explained at some point in
the level. Finally, after completing the level she commented, yet again, that having
no way to tell if she was hitting enemies on this level was an annoyance.
Chapter 2: Sydney managed to get through this level with little difficulty. She
even stated that this level was the most enjoyable one in the game due to it’s ease
and it’s normalized play style and feel. The only negative thing she remarked on was
the fact that the controls switched from level to level, which was confusing. The only
notable glitch found was the continuous jumping animation when walking up or
down stairs near the arena area.
Chapter 3: This level was the most frustrating for Sydney. She first noted
that the sword being the controller was once again a major negative in the level. She
played through the enemies and pits initially without any major issues, but once she
reached the cannonball portions, she became irritated. It was often exclaimed, in
less than professional terms, that jumping over or around the cannonballs was
impossible and that they came so fast she didn’t have time to react. After roughly 25
minutes of trying, she declared that she had had enough of the game and that she
wished she could “Put myself out of my misery with this game”. This was noted and
she was directed pastthis part of the level so that the playtest could continue.
After progressing through the later parts of the level, she did enjoy the “Kill
All Enemies” portion. Once she finally reached the dragon boss portion of the level,
she remarked that this could be a cool boss fight. After failing a few times against the
dragon boss, she finally understood that the dragon could only be attacked when it
fell asleep. After a few more tries, she managed to beat it. She did say that the boss
battle on this level was one of the most enjoyable parts of the game and, “These
types of things should be the core of the game, because then it would be fun.”
After she completed the level the playtesting session was ended. Her overall
opinion of the game was that it was majorly flawed, but had potential. She also said
that, if the bugs were taken out and some of the more challenging parts were
changed, she would be willing to Once Legendary again in the future. The total time
playtesting was 3 hours and 42 minutes.
Lucas
Prologue:Lucas thought that the story book was a lever title screen. When
he got into the game he had to try a few usual movement setups such as the arrow
keys. He finally figured out that wasd was to move. He then laughed at the whoopsie

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doodle sound effect, and learned how to pick his character up quickly. The player
got stuck on the part when you drop down past the spikes and said the
walk/slowdown key should be in a different place. He then got confused at the part
after the platform moves up because he could not see another platform that he had
to make a long jump to. By the end, he said that he would definitely play with the
sound off if he could.
Chapter 1:Lucas’ initial thought was “woah, what is up with this?” He was
confused about controlling the sword and it took him awhile to figure out how to
ground smash. At the first cutscene he stated that he thought that there should have
been some dialogue at the beginning of the level. The next thing that he had trouble
with was hitting the fireballs, so he just ran past a few of them. He had a lot of
trouble getting the grapple to work right and eventually I had to give him some
advice. Even then it took him a few attempts.
Chapter 2:In this chapter he learned that if you double tap a direction when
not playing as the sword would make the character fall over. He did that a few times
and thought it was amusing. He got a little frustrated at the end of the moving
platform section and learned that he could long jump past most of the platforms to
get past it. When he saw the part where you have to jump across multiple pits to
tiny platforms, he sat up and said he had to focus for this part. He looked very bored
at the parts where he was just walking straight for long periods.
Chapter 3:First, he had trouble with the beginning cannon area. He quickly
learned to dash to get to the next trench. On the next cannon area the player got
onto the platforms and tried to get on the second tower and fell through the bottom.
He got slightly irritated that he could not go onto the tower. After dying at this part a
lot I asked if he wanted to skip it and he said no he was going to beat it. During the
kill all enemies area the archer started randomly shooting really fast non-stop. At
the final boss battle Lucas was confused on how to dodge the fire breath attack.
Derrick
Prologue:Derrick started the level normally and worked his way right. He
cleared most obstacles fairly easily. He found the sounds and narration very
amusing, in particular the “whoopsie doodle” when you fall. He quickly learned how
to pick his character up and it didn’t seem to phase him. The vines did prove to be a
little trouble for him especially the one where you drop down; it took him 11 tries to
get past that one part. He did not have much trouble getting through the rest of the
level.
Chapter 1:Derrick didn’t understand why his character was a ragdoll and
messed around for a few minutes with the controls to figure it out. He eventually
made his way right and followed the mini tutorials on how to use the various moves.

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The only tutorials he had issues with were ground slam and grapple. He didn’t
actually read the ground slam one and couldn’t get past that part so I told him how
to ground slam. He was very interested in killing all the monsters and collecting the
gold coins throughout the entire level. He also had a little trouble with grapple as
well and it took him a few minutes to figure it out. When he reached the boss, it
took him a little bit to figure out the riposte skill. The level one boss provided little
challenge.
Chapter 2: He went through this level fairly easily and only missed two
jumps where he fell to his death.
Chapter 3:When he started the level a cannon ball killed him before he got
to the first trench. He still focused on killing all the enemies and collecting all the
gold. There was a couple of times during the first cannonball encounter where the
cannonballs hit him and threw him back without killing him. He eventually worked
his way to the first checkpoint and reached the most challenging part of the game
for him. The Second encounter with the cannon balls proved most challenging. He
managed to dash under the cannon balls a couple of times. He eventually figured out
that jumping over them was the most efficient way. He grew frustrated with this
part of the game as he died 20+ times on this part. He ran through rest of the game
without any trouble and still enjoyed killing all the NPCs. The dragon provided no
challenge at all for him.
Impression Questions
Question 1: How does the menu compare to other games? Is it easy to navigate? Is it
visually appealing?
Michael:“It doesn’t look like it’s that good of quality. The font looks like it’s from
Microsoft Word. The book doesn’t really look like a book.”
Sydney: “The menu is a little odd, but comparable. It’s easy to navigate, but the book
flipping closed and open again every time I click a sword is annoying.”
Lucas: “Basic menu layout. Easy to navigate. However, the flipping of the book is
slightly confusing.”
Derrick: “Easy to navigate.”
Question 2: What does the title make you think is the basis of the game?
Michael:“He (the main character) goes on a hero's journey and becomes a legend.
It looks like a fantasy game.”
Sydney: “It makes me think of a knight or someone who was legendary once and
lost his power?”
Lucas: “The main character was great and had power, then lost everything”

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Derrick: “Medieval times game”
Question 3: Does the naming convention match other game title menus? Is it
understandable?
Michael:“No, normal games aren’t going to have the same setup. There will be
sub-categories and it will ask you to change the settings.”
Sydney: “Yes. I understood what was happening with the menu, and it was
understandable because of it being set up like a book.”
Lucas: “Yes, for the most part. New game, Continue, and Quit are all you need to
see.”
Derrick: “It doesn’t match any games I’ve played and is understandable.”
Exploratory Questions
Prologue
Question 1: Do you find the sound effects bothersome or amusing?
Michael:“They’re quite amusing. (he laughs)”
Sydney: “Funny, but play too often and can become annoying.”
Lucas: “At first they are funny especially whoopsie doodle. However, they get
bothersome when you have to jump a lot or fall down too much.”
Derrick:“Both amusing and bothersome. Bothersome due to no realism and
amusing because of the tripping saying ‘whoopsie doodle’.”
Question 2: Is the level easy, in your opinion, to progress through and complete?
Michael: “It was medium and straightforward. It took good problem solving
because you had to be observant with the (switch) colors.”
Sydney: “Moderate. Those vines sucked, otherwise it was enjoyable. A bit short
though.”
Lucas: “Yes after learning the controls and how the character moves. Also learning
how close you can get to spikes helps.”
Derrick: “The thorns were a difficult challenge because when you touch them you
die immediately.”
Chapter 1
Question 1: Did you like controlling the sword instead of the player? Why or why
not?

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Michael: “It’s interesting. I’m glad they added something else to the game.”
Sydney: “No! There was no real control. It felt more like a limp noodle than a
character.”
Lucas: “I liked controlling the player more. It is what I am more used to and has a lot
more control.”
Derrick: “I liked controlling the character more because there was more control
than there was in the sword.”
Question 2: How does the difficulty of the enemies compare to similar side-scrolling
games you’ve played?
Michael: “Most games, you jump on their head and they’re done. This one takes a
lot more hits. It makes me very frustrated.”
Sydney: “The only hard enemy was that last stupid block. There are no HP bars, so I
had no idea how good or bad I was doing against it. Otherwise they are comparable.”
Lucas: “I think it is normal for a side scroller with actual attacks, one or two hits is
plenty.”
Derrick: “Very easy to obliterate.”
Chapter 2
Question 1: What did you find most interesting about this level? Why?
Michael: “”It wasn’t really interesting”
Sydney: “The long jump with the slide involved. It wasn’t fun, but it was interesting
because it was unusual.”
Lucas: “Nothing really. The level was mainly walking and kind of boring.”
Derrick: “This level had more obstacles in it and had no enemies to kill. It was more
of an obstacle course which gave it more of an adventure game than other games.”
Question 2:What was the most difficult part of this level? Why?
Michael: “After the second jump point, I would land, but the character would slide
off the platform. The momentum would keep him going.
Sydney: “I didn’t find it difficult. It was the easiest so far, and thankfully there
weren’t any thorns!”
Lucas: “Timing the jumps on the smaller platforms because of the narrow window
you have in order to land right.”
Derrick: “The long jump after the uphill I thought was the most difficult part of the
level because the character ran a lot slower going up the hill than he did running on
flat ground which is accurate but made it more of a challenge to jump the distance.”

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Chapter 3
Question 1: How difficult or frustrating was it to dodge the cannonballs?
Michael: “Oh my gosh, that was max frustration because it was, like, impossible. It
was so annoying.”
Sydney:“Very frustrating. I can’t emphasize that enough, because it made the whole
level unbearable and basically impossible to enjoy.”
Lucas: “Very frustrating until I figured out how to get on top of the platforms.”
Derrick: “Extremely difficult and very annoying.”
Question 2: Did you enjoy the “Kill All Enemies” portion more or less than the other
portions of the game? Why?
Michael: Michael did not reach this part of the level
Sydney:“It was interesting to be held back by kills, but I already kill most enemies
so no big change for me.”
Lucas: “I enjoyed this part less because the fireball creatures were too hard to hit, I
would have rather ran past them.”
Derrick: “Yes I did enjoy it very much because it was very entertaining to kill all the
enemies.”
Directive Questions (Development Team)
Question 1: How was the level difficulty scaling or difficulty change from level to
level?
Michael: “The levels went like this: Easy, Easy, Medium, then SUPER difficult.”
Sydney:“The third level was easy, but the others were difficult in comparison. That
final level sucked because it was just TOO difficult.”
Lucas: “The first level was the hardest for me just because I had to learn the
controls. The middle two levels were easy, and the last level was pretty hard, but at
least I knew the controls by then.”
Derrick: “The first three level were moderate and then jumped up to extremely
difficult on the 4th
level.”
Question 2: How did the controls feel during each level?
Michael: “There is a lot to remember from jumping to the dash. The controls are
weird for gaming, but normal for standard typing.”
Sydney:“Levels 1&3 felt normal, but controlling that sword was bothersome and
the controls for it felt weird and not very enjoyable.”
Lucas: “The walk button should be in a different location and the sword movement
and timing is confusing.”

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Derrick: “The blade dash feels kind of slow to respond especially when trying to
dodge those cannon balls.”
Game Bugs Encountered by Playtesters
Tester, Issue #, Level Encountered, Description
Michael, #1, Level 4 (Chapter 3): After the player died at the cannonball gauntlet on
the 24th time, his character became stuck when he encountered the first large
cylinder enemy. The enemies around him were still moving, but he could not jump,
move forward or move backward.
Sydney, #1, Level 1 (Prologue): As the player is jumping down to the floor, before
jumping up platforms to reach the double wall of thorns portion of the game, they
can often get caught on collision boxes while falling. This happened several times to
Sydney during her play testing session.
Sydney, #2, Level 1 (Prologue): The finish level “cloud” that marked the end of the
level, when entered, crashed the game. This happened twice in a row, then worked
the third time.
Sydney, #3, Levels 2&4 (Chapter 1 & 3): The character ragdoll will go out of control
and his body parts will fly around the screen randomly. This happened several times
after Sydney hit the “esc” key to access the pause menu, and sometimes when she
would respawn.
Sydney, #4, Level 3: The character infinitely jumps when moving up and down the
staircase leading into the giant open arena-looking area. This was noticed by
Sydney, and was quickly commented on.

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Data Collection
Controller Trollers
Test
Subject
Level Time to
complete
lvl
Times
Died
Death by
hitting thorns
or spikes
Death by
falling in
a Pit
Death by
swinging
pendulum/
cannon
Death
by
falling
object
Death
by
enemies
Enemies
Defeated
Times fell
over
Number of
Coins
Collected
Objects
Destroyed
(trees,
rocks,
crates,
barrels)
Jeff H. Prologue 6:32 5 4 0 1 n/a n/a n/a 12 n/a n/a
Jeff H. Chapter 1 20:14 4 0 0 n/a 0 4 46 n/a 79 26
Jeff H. Chapter 2 4:42 4 n/a 4 n/a n/a n/a n/a 8 n/a n/a
Jeff H. Chapter 3 27:10 32 2 1 26 0 3 53 n/a 103 37
Kyle D. Prologue 15:24 36 30 4 2 n/a n/a n/a 12 n/a n/a
KyleD . Chapter 1 n/a 54 14 34 n/a 0 3 9 n/a 14 13
KyleD . Chapter 2 4:48 3 n/a 3 n/a n/a n/a n/a 6 n/a n/a
KyleD . Chapter 3 23:47 34 0 4 24 6 4 22 0 37 14
Dakota D. Prologue 5:20 3 1 1 1 n/a n/a n/a 18 n/a n/a
Dakota D. Chapter 1 14:10 7 0 4 n/a 0 3 27 n/a 68 28
Dakota D. Chapter 2 10:15 1 n/a 1 n/a n/a n/a n/a 4 n/a n/a
Dakota D. Chapter 3 15:45 20 2 1 17 0 0 16 0 25 3
Jon C. Prologue 6:45 3 2 1 0 n/a n/a n/a 5 n/a n/a
Jon C. Chapter 1 16:14 6 0 0 n/a 0 6 7 n/a 57 20
Jon C. Chapter 2 3:41 4 n/a 4 n/a n/a n/a n/a 6 n/a n/a
Jon C. Chapter 3 21:34 35 5 2 23 0 5 35 0 48 19

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Test Subjects
Test Subject Level Time to
complete
lvl
Times
Died
Death by
hitting
thorns/spike
s
Death by
falling in a
Pit
Death by
swinging
pendulum
/cannon
Death
by
falling
object
Death by
enemies
Enemies
Defeated
Times fell
over
Number of
Coins
Collected
Objects
Destroyed
(trees, rocks)
Michael Prologue 8:29 5 1 2 2 n/a n/a n/a 9 n/a n/a
Michael Chapter 1 15:06 4 0 3 n/a 0 1 51 n/a 60 16
Michael Chapter 2 6:02 8 0 8 n/a n/a n/a n/a 8 n/a n/a
Michael Chapter 3 18:31 40 6 2 24 0 8 8 n/a 14 49
Sydney Prologue 43:29 51 43 5 3 n/a n/a n/a 81 n/a n/a
Sydney Chapter 1 48:14 26 1 18 n/a 0 7 26 n/a 71 14
Sydney Chapter 2 9:36 4 0 4 n/a n/a n/a n/a 13 n/a n/a
Sydney Chapter 3 52:36 62 7 10 40 0 5 32 n/a 44 19
Lucas Prologue 20:24 17 14 2 1 n/a n/a n/a 30 n/a n/a
Lucas Chapter 1 21:22 8 0 5 n/a 0 3 42 0 91 31
Lucas Chapter 2 7:49 7 n/a 7 n/a n/a n/a n/a 13 n/a n/a
Lucas Chapter 3 21:56 28 5 2 20 0 1 30 n/a 29 8
Derrick Prologue 14:44 18 15 2 1 n/a n/a n/a 25 n/a n/a
Derrick Chapter 1 25:30 10 1 1 n/a 0 8 64 n/a 47 20
Derrick Chapter 2 5:29 2 n/a 2 n/a n/a n/a n/a 10 n/a n/a
Derrick Chapter 3 38:29 49 11 5 33 0 2 61 n/a 40 60

18

Issues Encountered by Testing Team
Issue (Jeff) In the Prologue level, when the player encounters the first floor
switch, the character gets stuck on the floor and cannot
smoothly walk onto the switch. The player has to jump to move
and easily avoids the swinging pendulum from ever triggering.
Type(QA or
Gameplay)
QA
Severity (Critical,
Medium, Low)
Medium
Reproduction steps
if QA
In the Prologue level, when the player encounters the first floor
switch, the character gets stuck on the floor and cannot
smoothly walk onto the switch. The player has to jump to move
and easily avoids the swinging pendulum from ever triggering.

19
Issue (Jeff) In Chapter 1, for the rabbit boss encounter, the character can
jump high (out of the screen) in some instances while close to the
exit.
Type(QA or
Gameplay)
QA
Severity (Critical,
Medium, Low)
Medium
Reproduction steps
if QA
During the rabbit encounter, move the character close to the
right hand wall. Jump using space bar, and double tap “W”. .
Issue (Jeff) In Chapter 3, dying before “The Barricades…” checkpoint places
the player in front of the checkpoint.
Type(QA or
Gameplay)
QA

20
Severity (Critical,
Medium, Low)
Medium
Reproduction
steps if QA
Die from the cannonball while the cannon is on the screen. The
character is placed at “The Barricades” checkpoint.
Issue (Jon) You can get stuck in mid air when you try to ground slam and
grapple down at the same time.
Type(QA or
Gameplay)
QA
Severity (Critical,
Medium, Low)
Critical
Reproduction
steps if QA
Character first jumps and then double taps S and press K. It
happens when there is an object for ground slam to destroy.

21
Issue (Jon) There is a spot where a checkpoint is right before a lengthy dialog.
When you die you are forced to go through that dialog again and
can be slightly frustrating when you die multiply times in that one
spot.
Type(QA or
Gameplay)
Gameplay
Severity (Critical,
Medium, Low)
Medium
Solutions Steps if
Game Play Issue
I can think of two solutions for this, one being to delete the
cutscenes after it plays. The other is to move the check point after
the cutscene.
Issue (Kyle) You are routinely caught on collision boxes near platforms. This
can cause the player to glitch through the map floor or to fall into
pits when trying to free themselves. Happens often enough to be
detrimental to gameplay.
Type(QA or
Gameplay)
Gameplay
Severity (Critical,
Medium, Low)
Medium
Solutions Steps if
Game Play Issue
Go back into editor and fix collision boxes to better match blocks in
game. Or edit the character controllers ability to climb slopes, in
other words, make his slope climb lower to keep his avatar from
trying to climb up.

22
Issue (Kyle) The game crashes if you reach the finish cloud on Chapter 2 before
the voice-over ends. This has happened 100% of the times tested.
Type(QA or
Gameplay)
QA
Severity (Critical,
Medium, Low)
Critical
Reproduction
steps if QA
Finish Chapter 2 and run to the finish point before the voice-over
stops.

23
Issue (Dakota) The grapple mechanic is slightly touchy, sometimes it will connect
and sometimes it won’t.
Type(QA or
Gameplay)
Gameplay
Severity (Critical,
Medium, Low)
Medium
Solutions Steps if
Game Play Issue
Jump and double tap “W” while a platform is above the character.
Issue (Dakota) The second cannonball area of chapter three is very difficult to get
past due to the size of the cannonballs and the height at which the
character can jump. This could cause players to get frustrated.
Type(QA or
Gameplay)
Gameplay
Severity (Critical,
Medium, Low)
Medium
Solutions Steps if
Game Play Issue
A solution would be to try scaling down the cannon ball size
slightly or making it easier to get onto the platforms.

25
Analysis
Specific areas that are common points of frustration/confusion for all testers
➢ In Prologue and Chapter 2, all players occasionally fell over due to pressing
movement keys multiple times. There was no clear reason why falling over
was a mechanic because it didn’t appear to have any impact on the gameplay
➢ In the prologue level, the double vine/spike wall was overly difficult because
of loose controls and the reaction time of the character in free fall.
➢ When initially starting gameplay, there is no movement instructions. Several
of the players tried using the keyboard movement arrows and mouse
clicking, but did not know what to do after those had no effect. None of the
players thought of pressing ESC to look for movement instructions.
➢ The cannonball sections in the final level were easily the most frustrating
part for all testers. The size of the cannonballs, the frequency, and the speed
at which they travel where all points of frustration for testers and a game
stopper for one tester.
➢ All players reported being confused at the beginning of Chapter 1 because
there was no explanation on why they starting controlling a sword instead of
the player.
➢ Bunny Boss health was not visible and players reported the time between
phases took too long. The small flying cubes were higher than the character
and unable to be Riposted, which caused additional frustration.
Level Scaling/Difficulty
➢ 73 of the 91 (81%) deaths in the prologue were due to thorns.
➢ 137 of the 215 (64%) deaths in Chapter 3 were due to cannonball fire
➢ Chapter 2 had the least amount of deaths with only 16 or 6% overall.
➢ Coin collection dropped dramatically for 3 out of 4 playtests due to players
realizing they can run through enemies without significant damage
Mechanics Players Didn’t Use During Gameplay
➢ Bloodlust (B)
➢ Walk (Left Shift)

26
Player Emotion During Each Level
Prologue
➢ Enjoyment: When reviewing the first book page
➢ Laughing: Sound effects and voice over
➢ Interested: Throughout
➢ Engaged: Throughout
➢ Annoyed: Double thorn wall drop
➢ Confused: Character movements and controls
Chapter 1
➢ Confused: why character was now a sword dragging a body
➢ Frustrated: a lot of combat keys to remember, but only brief tips
Chapter 2
➢ Bored: No meaningful choices throughout the level
➢ Frustrated: Character slides and controls are loose
➢ Enjoyable: No difficult mechanics to deal with
Chapter 3
➢ Frustrated/Rage: Cannonball portions
➢ Annoyed: Character controls as the sword
➢ Frustrated: Character movement was not consistent (dash, double “W” +
jump)

27
Recommendations
1. In the Prologue, when the player initially begins the level, explain to them
how they can move the character. Other abilities weren’t used by the testers,
such as Walk and Bloodlust. You should add something that points the
player to the ESC menu, which contains the movement controls. There are
also no instructions on how to pick the character up after they fall over.
2. For the pop-up window instructions, they should be permanent fixtures in
the level. If you do keep the pop-up window, we suggest making the font
larger so it is easier to read on smaller screens. Different windows also
require different keys to close, but by normal standards would be “Press any
key to continue”.
3. Unless falling over (Prologue/Chapter 2) has some use in the future, we feel
that it’s not consistent/standard with other side scrolling game mechanics.
4. In Chapter 3, the cannonballs are too large, move too fast, and give the user
little time to react to them without memorization after excessive deaths. We
suggest that you either scale them down and slow their movement or simply
have them do significant damage instead of instantly killing the character.
5. In the Prologue, for the drop down wall with thorns on either side, we
recommend that you reduce the size of the extruding thorns to give players a
better chance at successfully passing through in two or three tries.
6. A health bar for the bosses would be useful and provide the player visibility
of the bosses status.
7. A “Settings” menu should be added to the Title Screen allowing the character
to toggle sound effects, text size, difficulty and music (when added).

28
Post Mortem
What went right
For player testing, we felt that having a procedure helped us set up the
station and work with our play testers throughout the sessions. Having a solid
foundation that the team prepared previously helped us focus more on active
listening and note taking. The team also stayed in constant communication with one
another throughout the week, allowing us to stay up-to-date on our individual
progress.
What went wrong
We had to wait till mid week for playtesting due to the additional levels that
were added and not discussed in previous week. The team also had a hard time
finding testers that fit the required demographic, which set us back on completing
our data tables and graphs.
What We Would Change
We would have liked a little more advanced notice on the need for outside
playtesters in week four. This would have helped the team contact potential
playtesters sooner and would have allowed a smooth approach to testing.
For our testing setup, it would have been nice to have two cameras set up.
One facing the tester, the other facing the game. Both could have recorded more of
the players emotions during different periods in each level.
We would have liked to have had a few more testers so we could have had
larger data pool to review. One of the three testers had a significantly harder time
completing several of the levels. It would be interesting to see how many players
out of ten or twenty would have had the same issues.

29
References
Nielsen, J. (January 1, 1995). 10 Heuristics for User Interface Design. Retrieved
from: http://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/
Once Legendary [Computer Software]. (2015) Zulu: Team.
Screenshots (2015). Once Legendary [Computer Software]. (2015) Zulu: Team.
Zulu, T. (2015). Once Legendary GDD(Vol. 1, pg. 1-9).

Controller trollers test report 1115

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