J: User Observations

Introduction:

One of the ways we conducted primary research was through observing the experience of a user playing a roleplaying (RPG) game. Due to COVID restrictions, we were not able to perform this observation with our direct users, which are middle school and elementary students. As a result, we simulated the observation by having one of our team members, June Hooper, play the video game Paper Mario: The Origami King. June has the least amount of experience with video games among our team members, and thus was the most accurate proxy to our direct users in terms of video game knowledge. Paper Mario: The Origami King is a hybrid between a RPG and a puzzle video game, and observing June gave us insight into which classic RPG game mechanics, aesthetics, and experiences we might want to incorporate into our design. In addition, June’s emotional experience during the simulation will clarify our decisions about what common pitfalls or bad features we will want to avoid when developing our game. Ultimately, the simulation of a user playing an RPG revealed several directions for the future of our design that our team will explore.

Methodology:

1. User Observation Simulation with June Hooper (Team Member)

This observation session was conducted as an in-person group meeting in Willard Hall at Northwestern University. June Hooper played Paper Mario: The Origami King while the other team members observed and took notes on her experience. The observation was conducted in person on April 15th from 1:15pm to 2:00pm.

Results:

1. Notes on Overall Gameplay: Paper Mario: The Origami King is a combination of an RPG and puzzle adventure game, in which the player plays as Mario. Mario has a variety of friend characters and fights origami enemies that he encounters in the paper world. In battle, the player rotates and slides pieces of a circle board to solve a puzzle. After lining up enemies in ideal positions, Mario attacks as his turn. The two main attacks in the game are a Hammer attack (wide, short-range) or Boots attack (narrow, long-range). After Mario’s turn, the enemies attack until the battle ends when one side’s health is completely depleted. Mario earns coins which can be used to purchase attack upgrades.

2. Experience with Turn-Based RPG Battles: June naturally discovered the situations in which Hammer attacks worked better than Boots attacks and vice versa. She struggled to solve the puzzles, but found the turn-based attacks intuitive. She also easily adapted and used different weapons when confronted with special enemies with new properties. More advanced attacks in the game, such as blocking attacks and sliding the rings (inside of turning) were harder for June to grasp in the short period of time.

3. Experience with World Interaction: June wandered around the different worlds in the game, and she noted that she enjoyed talking to and interacting with the other characters. Although she enjoyed the scenery, June said that she felt confused about the openness of the game and that she didn’t know where to go in order to feel a “sense of progression.” June naturally went toward shiny, sparkly items and started collecting the coins scattered throughout the world, but when asked why, she responded that she didn’t know what the coins were for but she figured she might need them.

4. Likes with the Game: June noted that she very much enjoyed the aesthetic of the game. She specifically mentioned that she liked the scenery and themed locations, as well as the vivid colors and cute non-player characters. She also liked that the item and attack selection aspect of the battle system was fairly straightforward, intuitive, and easy to learn.

5. Dislikes with the Game: June struggled with the puzzle aspect of the battling system but also shared that she felt like the battling system felt too easy for her to feel successful. She also wished that she had more instructions to understand how she was supposed to progress through the world or be most successful in battle. She disliked that there was no clear goal for her while playing.

Discussion:

This simulated user observation was useful as it gave our team more insight into features from classic game mechanics that we might want to incorporate or avoid in our final game design. For example, June’s favorite aspect about her experience with Paper Mario: The Origami King, was the overall aesthetic of the game. As our game is targeted towards children, this observation suggests that having a visually appealing aesthetic for our game is important to engaging our users. Two other important takeaways from the discussion are the need for clear instructions and a clear sense of progression. June struggled and was turned off by the aspects of gameplay that were not intuitive, and expressed her desire for more direct instructions. As our actual users are several years younger than June, the need for gameplay explanation is especially important for use of the game as a teaching tool. Finally, our game must incorporate a general sense of progression. This is a more abstract goal, but June’s main grievance with her experience was that she didn’t feel like she was making progress towards any in-game goal. This is an overarching idea that we must keep in mind when designing the storyline and plot development within our own game. Once again, this observation is limited in the sense that it is not a true observation, but rather only a simulated version. June has much more life experience than our users would have, and we must keep the inherent bias in this interview in mind as we move forward in our brainstorming and initial mockups.