Shop Artefact User Testing & Redesign
Because the shop artefacts were already created, this time around we used user testing to help redesign and improve the items’ overall aesthetics and to better fit into the theme. The users tested were young adults and university students between the ages 18 - 24, all of which had played some kind of game in their life. Users were asked to first identify which designs they’d like to be improved. Most users reported the following 6 items:
- Axe
- Trident
- Sword
- Bow
- Potion
- Bed
- Design too simplistic
- Looks like every basic axe
- Looks worse than main weapon – why get this?
- Very small and short – want an axe with more presence
- Most users thought it was a candle, not a trident
- End of blade not sharp
- Handle too basic
- Overall want more interesting design
- Did not look like pixel art
- Way too short & small
- More like a miniature knife
- No incentive to buy other than stats
- Size appears decent
- Expect a more complex design
- Boring – bring more colour into it
- Too simplistic
- Inconsistent design – doesn’t look like pixel art
- Perspective is not ideal – would prefer isometric
- Does look like a potion, but not a health one
- The flask looks jagged and rough – aim for more consistent and reconsider a rounder shape
- Users were given outline of potion and asked to colour it in – 5/5 people chose some shade of red
This feedback gave us insight into what changes need to be made to each design. The user testing gave us the direction needed to begin re-working the old designs. The design process based on user feedback for each item can be found in the individual links below:
In final testing, users were given the old vs new designs without being told which ones are new/old. All 4 users chose the newer designs over the old ones, commenting that the quality was to a much higher standard.
Unfortunately, because of the way weapon swing animation and character movement animation were initially created, it was impossible to re-implement it with the new weapon sprites in this sprint. This is because, in total, it required a total of 177 sprites (excluding all different helmet/chest plate armor combinations) to be fully remade with the new weapons. I asked for help from the previous team responsible for animation, however, as they were busy with their own tasks in Sprint 4, they were unable to help. I attempted to redesign all sprites, but ended up running out of time. An example of this is:
Original:
Into the new:
When I tried to upload this image to the anim_demo folder, the moving animation was way too off because I needed to know the exact position of the borders in order for the frames to be perfect and not blend into one another.