We playtested with a few Stanford students outside of class and they gave us helpful feedback on how to adjust the minigames. At the time of playtesting, players could play a sorting minigame where they collect falling packages and click on the correct receptacle to sort them in top-down order and a package delivery minigame where players can use arrow keys to fly through space and space to shoot packages.
We got feedback on the sorting mechanic that the stack mechanic was confusing, as players could not tell initially if they were meant to sort from the bottom or the top of the stack and that a tutorial would be helpful. We are adding a tutorial to mitigate this confusion. We also initially designed the game to use the mouse’s drag and click to sort (like in the Club Penguin coffee bean stacking game) but got feedback that the A and D keys with spacebar may be better control options and are considering switching them to keyboard controls.
For the galaxy shooter, players wondered if the movement could be controlled through WASD or arrow keys to choose their favorite input method. We will add this functionality. They were also frustrated that the spaceship continued to move after they stopped pressing the key to move in a particular direction and that the game ended when the last package was shot from the spaceship rather than when it was delivered to the planet, so we want to change these features to be more intuitive.
Questions:
- How “unexpected” should game consequences be? Is it enough that we follow what the real-world mailing system might look like in space?
- Any tips or feedback you notice 🙂
