Harano was a game created by a group of students at DSK Rubika as part of their Thesis Project. They had plans to re-visit the game and make changes and alterations to it, so they could release it properly with the vision they originally had for it.

When I heard about this, I volunteered to help a with a Focus Group to help them decide what should be the next mechanic for this update. I used a Focus Group to see the dynamics of the team and see if I could pick out certain bits or pieces to help them come to a decision and see where they might be going wrong with the overall game and understand the overall team dynamic.

The original game consisted of the player playing between two characters known as Ananya and Barbur. Ananya had a lot of gameplay sequences while Barbur's were spliced in between, and the new mechanics would be to serve Barbur's gameplay.

I first found out about the project by reading the design documents and by talking to various members separately about the project and what was currently present in the game. My role would be to create questions before the focus group, moderate the conversations, and then analyze the conversation to see what points stuck out to me.

Ideally this would have been where I do put my process and how the various steps of the Focus Group, but I did compile all of that in my final breakdown, down below.

What I decided with the questions when creating is them is I thought.

"If I was being brought onto this project and had to work on these new mechanics, what would I need to know?"

What that did is that it not only helped me understand the game, but it clarified their vision for the game even more as they thought about the game in a new light and how an unbiased third-party member might view the overall product. It also made them think about what they wanted to portray with the game and redefine design pillars, to help with any future mechanics they would want to put in the game.

Results I think was a tough challenge to figure out. I recorded face cameras and audio (with the participants consent of course), first transcribing the audio then going back to add facial reactions or looks members of the team may have unknowingly given off.

Some questions that helped me figure out the group dynamic and true feelings about the mechanic were:

Who did most of the talking? Who interjected? When did people get excited?

I kept coming back to the original question of what new mechanics to add and saw how different members of the team talked about it. I had to draw some conclusions based on body language and how some people participated as well, but I feel that I did a pretty great job of consolidating that into the document above.

For the document I wanted something that was simple and easy to look at while still keeping in theme of the game. The game was about finding/exploring the ancestral home of an archologist and her discovering her past as a part of one of the oldest bloodlines in India, I used a font similar to what was used in their promotional material and Papyrus background fit with the theme of the game.

Now of course there is room for improvement and this is what I believed could have been improved.

• I should have asked more questions based on the time limit that was given to them as that would have made honing into a certain mechanic much easier. It’s not only important that the new mechanic fit their vision, but also the timetable that was given to them and I failed to ask questions or follow-up questions based on that.

• I think a couple of my follow-up questions were redundant as some of them became affirmations of what was already said which led to them repeating one or two points that they had already mentioned before.

• However, there was one follow-up question that was an affirmation that really did help with my questioning which is the one where I asked if they are telling the story of Ananya using Barbur as a backdrop. That helped it cement not only in my mind, but the creative lead what exactly the vision of the game is and allowed me to ask more questions based on that.

• I should have tried before to get Bhuvanesh’s opinions on the topic way before than I did. The only time I specifically mentioned him was at the end of the entire focus group and that might have been unfair on my part to ask him to answer the questions at the very end. I should have instead tried to get answers from him after everyone was done talking or when I saw that he wanted to say something, but never did.