Enchanted Ground 5: gamification 2

Enchanted Ground 5: Gamification 2

Playing the game – Newport Lakes Walk

Due to time limitations, playing the game required making a downscale simulation of the playing environment. This process provided some important insight into improving the development of the game. This was a worthwhile process and managed to highlight some areas that could really help to improve the playability of the game.

Tweeting

For this prototype of the game there are 4 tweets that have been created to direct player how to navigate their way through the game.These could easily be expanded and also include flora and fauna information along each route. The series of tweets include

• Tweet 1. #NewportLakesWalk Marker 1 head west for 350 meters towards marker 2 #FoNL #CWMP https://goo.gl/DYSyrw
• Tweet 2. #NewportLakesWalk Marker 2 head north east for 450 meters towards marker 7 #FoNL #CWMP https://goo.gl/DYSyrw
• Tweet 3. #NewportLakesWalk Marker 7 head east for 500 meters making a right turn towards marker 8 #FoNL #CWMP https://goo.gl/DYSyrw
• Tweet 4. #NewportLakesWalk Marker 8 head west for 100 meters towards marker 1 #FoNL #CWMP https://goo.gl/DYSyrw

What worked

The overall concept of the game works well. The game achieves its intention, helping the player to make their way through the park with a physical or digital map. If the concept was developed there is the potential for this to become a really helpful player game, acting as a park and tour guide. The directions are clear and quite accurate detailing the distance between each marker. There are however some improvements that can be made.

What didn’t work

The tweets where insights are giving directions could contain more information about the location and be more specific generally about heading in a certain direction. Attaching an image that contains a picture with text about the location will benefit the player understanding the directions clearly and gaining insights into the individual marker location. Some user focused design would really help to improve this process and benefit the overall game.

Unless there is a compass within the phone, a player won’t be able to play the game. Some of the directions are confusing and were completely telling the user to head in a different direction. These directions needed to be changed. For example, telling the user to head south, when they needed to head east. Some extensive location testing would need to be performed to ensure the directions are correct.

A rule will need to be added for the game to work a user must always be facing north, for the directions to make sense. Some kind of orientation needs to be added at the start of the game to help users understand what the rules are, where to start etc…