Our team created a questionnaire that we would give to a group of game students from Confetti College which were studying game design and were close to our target audience’s age range.
Questionnaire
Before the questionnaire took place, we gave a short notice to all the students taking part.
“We are researching how effective the design and layout of a game/website that we are creating for a specific target audience is and as part of that project are interested in your experiences/views about the game. The information you provide will be collated with others and analysed so that we can further develop the game for our specific audience. The information provided will be treated in strictest confidence and you will not be individually identified in any presentation of the results. All questionnaires will be kept in accordance with the Data Protection Act and destroyed at the end of the project.”
Also the last page of the questionnaire stated in detail what would be done with the questionnaires and with their information and we let them have a moment to read it first before starting the questionnaire.
Our questionnaire contained 12 questions, 6 on aesthetics, 4 on game based mechanics and 2 on web design.
The twist to our questionnaire was that I would be talking the students through the questions whilst showing them relevant visuals so that they had a fresh mindset when going into each question.
Fig 1: Questionnaire in digital form
Fig 2: Video that accompanied the questionnaire
There was a total of 13 student that completed our questionnaires and the information that we gathered was extremely useful towards the final push.
Aesthetic Results
How much to you like the character design?
On score of 1 (Dislike) to 10 (Really like) 6 and 7 were the average scores.
Do you think the character design would appeal to a younger audience? (Circle choice)
100 % of people said that yes the design would appeal to a younger audience.
How effective do you think the colours scheme is?
On score of 1 (Ineffective) to 10 (Very effective) The Average score was 5.
Do you think this colour scheme would appeal to a younger audience (14-18)?
• Yes – 5
• No – 7
• No definitive answer – 1
Would you prefer an authentic layout to the game or one that compliments game design?
- Authentic 4 People
- Game design – 9 People
Do you like the hand painted style of the game?
- Yes – 11 People
- No – 2 People
Game Engine Results
Do you like the placement of the camera?
- Yes – 9 People
- No – 4 People
What camera would you like the game to utilize?
I like the camera angle as it is – 5 People
Behind view (Gears of war style) – 4 People
Behind view (far behind – fallout 4’s third person style) 1 Person
Top Down – 0 People
Top down (slightly angled – Zelda link between worlds style) – 1 Person
First Person – 0 People
Corner cameras (Resident evil 1,2 and 3 style) – 0 People
Other: – 5 People
Do you like the character’s pace (movement speed)?
- Yes – 7 People
- No – 5 People
If no, explain why? : One person said it should be slowed to make it more difficult to get to cover.
Would you like a “dash” button?
- Yes – 8 People
- No – 3 People
- Not sure – 2 People
Website Results
Website:
Which website layout did you like the most, 1, 2 or 3?
1 – 4 People
2 – 2 People
3 – 8 People
Would you like the game on the front page or a separate page?
Front page – 9 People
Separate page – 4 People
How this affected the project
This questionnaire helped us gain confidence in our current work as most the questions answered were positive towards what we had already made. There were a few things that needed changing however.
There was a large amount of people who do not like how dark the colour scheme was, thinking it wouldn’t appeal to our target audience. As such when I went back to the game engine, I updated the textures to have a light overlay colour over them so that they appeared brighter.
If I don’t have time to create a “Dash” button, I will instead modify the movement speed of the character to make up for its naturally slow speed.
Many of the students wanted the product to compliment game design rather than authenticity which is something we was hoping for since we could now mix up the environment in response to the research.
Reference
Jamie Fox, 2015. Richard Project V1 [online video]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evnQcAsiTK4 %5BAccessed 10 December 2015].
Jamie Fox 