Data and Test Control

Gathering Data

Over the course of the semester, I worked on a virtual reality game by the name of "Pith" with six team members. Last autumn, we developed the prototype as our final project. The original prototype had three pieces of quantative data that can explain the overal experience of the game in its early development.

The first piece of quantative data was the amount of time that it took for the player to travel around the environment we designed. Since the environment is designed as a dungeon level, that meant lower lighting, larger spaces, and etc to reach for the cave-like experience we intended with a touch of dread for the player. The second quantitative piece would be how far the players were able to travel around the areas we designed in the game, since some of the rooms are connected by corridors, large open spaces with torches to light the way, and enemies to slow the player down. We also created plans to create custom rooms to act as puzzles as the player travels deeper and deeper into the game. Finally, the third piece of quantitative data is how many enemies did the player interact with over the course of the gameplay. The enemies we design include dancing skeletons who will attack the player, but we planned to customize the skeletons to create a variety of enemies to challenge the player too.

Test Control Situations

For the original prototype that my team and I made, here are three test control scenarios that the player can come across over the course of their gameplay. The purpose of this first test scenario is to see if the player is able to complete on defeating the skeletons in the game.Some observations is that player faces some difficulty in yielding the weapons supplied in their hands when manuevering it to kill the skeleton enemies. In another situation, the purpose of the second test scenario is to see if the player can lit the flame from the torch to one of the other torches in time before the enemies can attack. We noticed in our observations that the player is designed to run by moving the VR controllers in a sprint like motions, so that the locomotion can be easier. However, when arriving at the goal, the technique can be rather wonky or awkward for the player when traveling around the environment. The third test situation is seeing if the player can interact with the pressure plates installed to activate the doors for them to move on from one room to the next. Testing the pressure plate took enormous amount of time to develop, so the interaction with the HTC Vive that the player was thankfully able to work if the player choose the right SDK setup meant for the Vive.

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