Game development is a highly competitive industry, with hundreds of games being released every day. What can help distinguish a great game from a merely good one is the player experience. This talk will do a UX walkthrough of upcoming Xbox One / PC game Super High Ball and show which sorts of UX issues exist, and how they could be addressed.

1. UX Lessons from Indie
Game Development
Graham McAllister
Rome | March 22 - 23, 2019

2. UX in Games
• Not well understood
• It’s all about UI, right? Well, no!
• UX Research is about assessing your game’s design.
• UX impacts not just your game’s design, but your entire business.

3. UX in Games
• Case Study
• A UX evaluation of an indie game coming out for PC/Xbox One
• Today we’ll look at the tutorial
• First game
• Made by a single person, a 3D artist
• In his spare time

4. 1.

5. 1. Why is this ‘ok’?
Real world analog
Immediate feedback
Low priority

6. 1. Improvements
Real world analogColour coding

7. 1. Comparison

8. 2.

9. 2. Teaching core mechanics
Slow down. How long?
Horizontal slowing
medium priority

10. 2. Improvements
Real world analog
Time limit stated
Visual language

11. Horizontal slowing

12. 2. Comparison

13. 3. Post-level feedback

14. 3. Post-level feedback
Visual hierarchy

15. 3. Post-level feedback
Grouping

16. 3. Post-level feedback
Missing Info

17. 3. Post-level feedback
Visual clutter

18. 3. Post-level feedback
Font readability

19. 3. Post-level feedback
Language ambiguity

20. 3. Post-level feedback
Visual hierarchy
Grouping
medium priority
Missing info
Visual clutter
Font readability
Lang. ambiguity

21. 3. Improvements
Grouping
Missing info
Lang. ambiguity
Visual clutter

22. 3. Comparison

23. 4.

24. A while later…

25. 4.

26. 4. Instructions
Text Instruction
Visual instruction
High priority

27. 4. Improvements
Text language

28. 4. Comparison

29. 5.
Text Instruction
Visual instruction
High priority

30. 5. Instructions – First Time
Chaining
High priority

31. Visual language
Instructional Design
5. Improvements

32. 5. Comparison

33. 6. Instructions – First Time pt2

34. 6. Instructions – First Time pt2
Visuals look ‘almost’
correct
High priority
Dotted line = hold
Trigger in

35. 6. Improvements
Instructional Text

36. 6. Comparison

37. Overall Impact – So what?
 Players less likely to experience confusion and frustration
 Taught how to play the game the way the designer intends
 Players are more likely to engage with your game
 All games have these types of issues. Yours will too.

38. Overall Impact – So what?
 No matter how minor, many small issues can greatly impact on the player experience
 Having a UX process in place can catch these issues early in development

39. 7. Instructions – magnet mechanic