Fall Research 2017: Week 3

This week I continued my research on DDoS attacks, as well as made updates to our current game on phishing and helped administer another trial run in class. After our last in-class test, we received feedback from both the students and our advisor about what changes could be made to enhance the player experience. After discussing this together, I took up the process of readjusting game elements to present a better visual quality. I noticed that within our intro scene, both of the bird characters were visible on the PC version, but only one was in frame for tablets. I went into the Unity editor, changed the aspect ratio to be similar to an android tablet, and readjusted the bird and its text bubble in the scene:

I also simplified the main game how-to-play instructions to minimize text on screen and the amount of time to understand the controls. I did the same with the instructions in the Question scene to clarify how to move the bomb to hit the coins onscreen. Some people were having difficulty understanding how to swipe or drag the bomb, so I clarified that players should swipe from the bomb to the coins on mobile, and click and hold on the bomb and drag on PC. Lastly, I implemented enhanced versions of the question images used in the Question scene.

Finally, I assisted my partner in administering another trial of our game in-class. In this version of the game, players only had to collect 3 gray worms for a tip, and the speed of the yellow bird was decreased. We also placed the end game survey as a link in settings in case the option did not appear after gameplay ends. The test went mostly well, except for a few testers who gave up after losing their health and not realizing they could get more using their snack points at the store and continue. This gives me direction regarding handling player's comprehension and attention to game rules. We have to reevaluate how to get players to proceed if presented with a game over screen.