Playtesting: Escape the Office 2015
Please note that I did not make this game. This was merely practice with playtesting.
Link: http://kbhgames.com/escape-the-office-2015/ Playtest Goals: The goal of the playtests was to evaluate the balance/difficulty of the game.
Playtest 1:
Name: James
Demographic: White, Male, 27
Familiarity with Games: Plays a lot of games
Familiarity with Genre: Has played several “Escape-the-Room” games before
Familiarity with Specific Game: Never heard of it
Playtime: 8 minutes
Narrative: James had some trouble figuring out that one of the outlets has an adapter in
it that needs taken out. When I asked him why he had difficulty with it, he said it was because it looks like a normal plug from the angle shown. He didn’t know which number to call, because he didn’t realize what the word concierge meant, so he called all of the contacts in the phone. He also didn’t realize that he was supposed to call back the concierge multiple times until their line isn’t busy anymore. He enjoyed the music in the background, but didn’t like that he had to keep entering the passwords into the computer and cell phone.
Survey:
What was the most fun/interesting part of the game?
Finding the solutions to the puzzles.
What was the least fun / most frustrating part of the game?
The fact that there were items that never had any use.
On a scale from 1-10, how difficult was the game? (1 being too easy and 10 being too hard) Explain.
2; Compared to the other games I’ve played in the genre, this one was extremely simple to solve. The only difficulty came from a few problems I had with how clear the game was. I would have liked a little more challenge.
On a scale from 1-10, how was the length of the game? (1 being too short and 10 being too long) Explain.
4; I would have been willing to continue playing longer, but it felt like a satisfying length.
What is one change you would make to the game to make the difficulty more in line with what you would want?
Probably make it to where all of the items are used, and/or have even more items in the game. A few extra items/puzzles would go a long way toward making this game a nice difficulty.
Lessons Learned:
The plug adapter for the phone needs to be made more obvious
Change “concierge” to “land lord”, and have them simply pick up on the first call o Keep players logged in to computer and phone
Do something with the extra items, and/or add some more
Playtest 2:
Name: Michelle
Demographic: White, Female, 45
Familiarity with Games: Plays some iOS games (Words with Friends, Candy Crush)
Familiarity with Genre: Never played this type of game before
Familiarity with Specific Game: Never heard of this game before
Playtime: 13 minutes
Narrative: She liked that nothing is too small to be a clue, and you had to look at
everything to figure things out. There were several instances where she tried typing something into the computer or phone, but it wouldn’t work until she clicked on it again. There were many times where she clicked just barely out of the range of where an object was, and it lead her to think that nothing could be done. On the other hand, there were several times where she swore she knew the answer, and tried repeatedly clicking on something until I had to step in (for time’s sake) to let her know that what she was doing was not something that the game would allow. At one point, she wanted to mute the music, but was upset that it also muted all of the sound effects in the game. She also had a bit of difficulty coming to the realization that she could combine the items in her inventory.
Survey:
What was the most fun/interesting part of the game?
Having to use knowledge versus blowing things up.
What was the least fun / most frustrating part of the game?
The Music - Annoying
On a scale from 1-10, how difficult was the game? (1 being too easy and 10 being too hard) Explain.
7
On a scale from 1-10, how was the length of the game? (1 being too short and 10 being too long) Explain.
9
What is one change you would make to the game to make the difficulty more in line with what you would want?
Add more clues to lengthen the game.
Lessons Learned:
Automatically activate the text field on the computer and phone
Increase the “hitbox” of the objects in game
Add a “mute music” option
Briefly explain what the player can do, or add an extra (more obvious) puzzle to show how to combine items.
Playtest 3:
Name: McKenzie
Demographic: White, Female, 8
Familiarity with Games: Plays many games
Familiarity with Genre: Never played this type of game before
Familiarity with Specific Game: Never heard of this game before
Playtime: 22 minutes
Narrative: She had quite a bit of trouble with the game. Although I tried to not tell her
how to play the game, there were several times where I had to ask her leading questions to try to help her understand what she should be doing. She had a hard time clicking on some of the precise clickable areas of the game. Additionally, when using inventory items, she tried lining the item up with where she was trying to use it instead of her mouse. Like previous testers, she had a hard time figuring out that you can combine items, and that the plug extension in the outlet was even there. There were also moments where the game’s text went by too fast for her to read it.
Survey:
What was the most fun/interesting part of the game?
How the computer actually seemed like a computer
What was the least fun / most frustrating part of the game?
Not understanding what had to be done to open the door
On a scale from 1-10, how difficult was the game? (1 being too easy and 10 being too hard) Explain.
6
On a scale from 1-10, how was the length of the game? (1 being too short and 10 being too long) Explain.
5
What is one change you would make to the game to make the difficulty more in line with what you would want?
Only having to open 1 door instead of two
Lessons Learned:
Add optional hints for younger/inexperienced players who get stuck. Write these as leading questions, so that you don’t outright give the answers to the player.
Set it up so that the player has to click on the text that pops up to acknowledge that they read it.
(All other lessons learned from this playtest were addressed in the previous two playtests)
