You should definitely check out the research that Bungie and Microsoft did for Halo 3, where they used one of the most advanced testing labs ever created to get as much information on every aspect of the game they could. They monitored users facial expressions during play, they monitored how long it took for users to complete tasks, they spoke with users on set intervals to find out reactions, and they even used a custom built program that mapped out where users where located in the game map at different time intervals to see if they were proceeding in the virtual world as hoped. When large groups of users would cluster in areas that were not in the right direction, they would put hints on the map to move them in the right direction.
Bungie's goal is to try and "divine the golden mean of fun" which is basically the well known concept of flow. Games should be easy enough at first so that the user is not frustrated and can learn easily to have a fun state of flow. The trick is to then make the game very gradually become harder so that as the persons level of expertise increases, so does the difficulty. The "golden mean of fun" refers to keeping the user in between boredom and frustration, at the perfect center. Another interesting thing they find is that the most common problem users have with video games is starting over from a save point after a long journey. Users commonly reported that it was to frustrating in many games to have to do all the easy, but time consuming, stuff every time a boss or a hard group of enemies, kills you. In the Halo series, the game designers have made it priority that any time you encounter a large battle with a boss or group of enemies, the save points should be just before and just after, so beating it once allows you to continue, and dying means only that your restarting the battle. Battles are also kept short, it is the difficulty that changes. Theres alot of interesting information there, and I am only skimming the surface. Unfortunately, we do not all have Microsoft's budget and the best usability labs in the world, but alot of their findings can help us all in design. Heres the link: http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualworlds/magazine/15-09/ff_halo Tim Makoid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=27814 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
