I’ve finishing creating the level testing the relationship
between safety and materials.
I completely remade the level from the intial block map. It's now an 'S' shape rather than a straight line, and there is little variance in height. I did this so that when enemies are placed into the level, all of their fire won't come at the player in one go.I had two groups of testers, with one playing with bots and the other not.
Players first choose between these two routes, both with structural
barriers, and with bots on the other side
Next they choose between a short, stable metal route, or a
longer more precarious wooden route. Again with a couple of bots on the
platform these routes are connected to.
Lastly they need to get past two bots shooting at them
by taking the high metal route or the low wood route. I still wanted to see if
height played a part in feeling safe, and I intend to do another version with
the materials of the bridge swapped.
With bots enabled, the route that the players took seemed to depend on the
positioning of the bots and where their fire was coming from more so than what the bridges were made of. I would go so far as to say that players
ignored or didn’t take notice of what the materials were, or thought that it
wasn’t significant.
Many players at the start walked to the left over the wooden
bridge. However the fire from the bots on the opposite platform
peeked out from the right side of the cover the player starts behind. The right
side was more dangerous to them, the fact that the bridge was wood didn’t seem to matter. Afterwards, I changed the layout of the cover in front of them so
that the shots weren’t peeking out. The players then went over the right metal
bridge instead.
One player forego shooting back at the bots enteirly and ran past
them, running over the second longer wooden bridge. He was the only player to
do so, and I believe he did it because it allowed him to get further away from
the enemies. Again, the fact that the bridge was wood didn’t detract him.
During the end section, players usually stood on the
platform adjacent to the bots and fired at them. After they defeated them the
path they decided to take to the exit looked random, and was usually the path
that was in their line of sight after taking out the last bot.
The players who played the level without bots had more
predictable behaviour. They usually walked over the metal bridges, but there
were a few exceptions.
One player, during this third bridge section, stopped before
crossing the metal bridge and looked at it for a while before choosing to go
over the wooden bridge. This directly goes against what I thought was going to
happen, as the player thought that the wooden bridge was the safer option. It
would seem that the material that the bridge is only one aspect of the object that
goes towards what players’ feelings towards it are. Other aspects being the
width of the bridge, the apparent structural soundness etc. This particular
player must of thought the wooden option was safer because it was wider, and
because the metal bridge was made from three girders with visible gaps through
them, and perhaps he thought he might fall through them.
Another player went over the same wooden bridge but without checking
the other options. He crossed the previous metal bridge, which gave him a
direct line of sight to the wooden bridge. This player seemed less patient and
didn’t feel the need to look around and explore.
The main observation I want to look into is that players
seemed to default to taking the route on the right side (unless there was
something drawing them to the other, such as safety or a gun to pick up). There
are many possible reasons why this is. Was it because of the right turn the
players first make? Were all of the players right handed and did that effect
their choice? Is because we read left to right? Was it because the bridge was
made of metal?
The next step is to create the new version of the map with
the materials swapped.
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