Feedback Summary

This devlog will summarise the results of the testing session we ran and the feedback that we received from the testers.

After playing our prototype for Dance Monkey Dance, testers were asked to fill out a survey form about their thoughts and experiences with the game. 

The survey can be found here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeoRteVXdd5hmaRynxDvDbTRqy6wifRzodGUDJz...

The survey covered 3 main areas, Gameplay, Level Design, and Movement, as well as some general questions about the game. The questions were either short answer, multiple choice or on a scale from 1-Strongly Disagree to 5-Strongly Agree.

The first summary area is the gameplay. To begin with, ~66% of players found that the game was engaging, increasing to ~93% when including those who neither found the game engaging or disengaging.

This is reinforced by the fact that ~73% wanted to continue playing the game.

It is expected that not everyone likes or enjoys the fast-paced hoard game genre. But having more than 2/3 of people enjoying it means we are working in the right direction. Next came the different weapons. In Dance Monkey Dance the player uses a melee weapon and a ranged weapon. However, the ease of use of these weapons varied greatly and the survey gave an inconclusive result in both cases.

It was noted in the comments section that a more prominent cursor/crosshair would help with aiming and that the melee attacks felt a little buggy and didn’t work too well.

The last question was about the different enemies present in the game. Just over 50% of testers said that they were easily able to differentiate between different enemies in game. I believe the reason this percentage was so low is that for the first couple of waves, only one type of enemy spawns. It was noted in the comment section that some people did not make it very far in the game so they wouldn’t have had the chance to view different enemies.

Other comments made about the gameplay included a feeling of disconnect between fighting and moving. You either had to do one or the other but couldn't easily do both. And that each round started the same way with enemies spawning in the sky.

To fix some of the issues identified above we plan to implement multiple spawn locations so the enemies don’t always come at you from the sky and a more prominent crosshair and possibly a better melee attack animation.

The next area of review is the Level Design.

The first question was on the size of the map. The majority of testers found the map to be a good size however a few found it too big.

We then asked about the structures in the level. ~73% of testers found that the platforms and structures were a good distance apart from each other and greater than 50% said the player had good visibility of the map, increasing to 80% when including neither agree nor disagree.

One thing to note here is the lack of textures on the structures may have contributed to the lack of visibility as from certain angles, all the structures seem to blend together.

All participants agreed that the player had various paths to take when choosing where to go.

When questioned about the layout of the level, 40% of testers stated that each section of the level felt different from the others with another 40% saying they neither felt different nor the same.

There weren’t really any other comments that gave an insight to the tester’s views of the level design. One comment was that the player would just walk backwards and shoot while kiting the enemies and that if the level was smaller, it would provoke more need for parkour. We originally had a level with more structures in it where the player wouldn’t have been able to simply walk backwards to kite enemies. However, we found that having many smaller structures negatively impacted the wall running aspect of Dance Monkey Dance.

The next section in about the movement aspect of the game. Here the majority of testers found that the controls were easy to understand, easy to use, that the players movement was smooth, and the movement made them want to keep moving.

Most people found it easy to navigate from platform to platform however, when it came to keeping the wall running “Floor’s Lava” score going, people found it trickier on average.

Other comments about the movement were that some people found it difficult to navigate when in the air and that the dash ability would sometimes not dash the player in the direction that they were moving but straight forwards, especially when moving backwards.

The ability to dash in the direction the player is moving  is definitely something that can be added into the game.

The last section was just asking the testers some general feedback on the game.

 What testers liked about the game include the fluid flow of the movement, the sound effects, post processing effects and whole trying to keep of the ground aspect of the game.

Conversely, what testers didn’t like about the gameplay includes: the melee hitbox being vague, the lack of feedback when getting damaged, the upgrades sacrificing weapon damage for the sake of increase spread, the tank enemies being too tanky and the lack of user interface making it difficult to start a new game.

Ways to help remedy the above issues include fine tuning the melee animation to give it a more definitive strike zone, reducing the health multiplier on the tanks and adding some effect such as a red screen flash when being damaged.

Some comments about what should be changed mainly include fine tuning the enemy waves balance and spawn locations. One of the goals of the testing session was to get feedback on the enemy waves to see how we should change them. Multiple spawn locations are already in the works.  

Components that the testers would like to see added to the game include crosshairs and a visual indicator for shooting , an enemy health bar, a user interface, a proper gun model, upgrades that increase damage and abilities that alter movement such as floating for example.

A more prominent crosshair can be implemented without too much hassle and a user interface and a gun model is also already in the works. Some visual feedback which can be added when the gun is fired possibly includes some recoil or a flash/explosion at the tip of the gun model. It seems that having upgrades that increase damage dealt was a common thread amongst the testers so that can be implemented as well as some other upgrades to give a larger variety of choices. For the most part, the enemies in the game should be able to be killed with only a few hits, with the exception being the tanky enemies. A health bar can be added to give a visual representation of how much health the enemies have left, but this would be one of the later things to be added as there is plenty of work still to be done to get the Dance Monkey Dance prototype ready.

The bugs found by the testers we all ones that we were already aware of such as the game being paused when restarting the level and the wall run ability activating on stairs. However, one bug that was found which seemed to be common amongst many of the games tested was that the cursor was always rotating right when the game started. We believe this is an issue either with Itch io or the webGL build, but it does warrant further exploration to make sure it isn’t an issue with the game code.

That’s about it for the summary.  The testing session helped highlight some key areas that need to be addressed in order to get a game prototype ready for assessment.