Wednesday 25 July 2018

Test Report

Types of Testers

  • Peers (Ramona, Kylie, Emilia, Jad)
  • People who have not seen my progress (Kate)
  • Ideal user-testers (Roxanne)
  • Queer Friends (Raymond and Dylan)

Types of user-testing used

  • One-to-one testing

Methods of user-testing used
  • In-session observation
  • Post-session questions
  • Open Discussions

In-session Observations

Everyone except for Roxanne had some difficulties using the the keyboard and mouse to control the camera and movement of the player. Roxanne was hesitant to shoot at the dancers and ultimately decided not to. Emilia, Jad, Kate, Raymond and Dylan were completely immobile due to the mouse and keyboard and therefore didn't even walk around let alone use the gun. Ramona was able to move after a short adjustment period and Kylie felt comfortable to move but didn't feel compelled to move around. Ramona shot at the dancer who was dancing on their own while Kylie didn't shoot at anything. Out of this group only Roxanne, Ramona and Kylie had tested the first version. 




Most people were curious at what was happening and many asked the purpose of the guns almost immediately. Since I turned off all of the combat capabilities in the NPCs, most people didn't feel compelled to move the player around to explore and shoot except for Roxanne and Ramona (they played the first version and it used to be a shooter).




Post-Session Questions

What was your first impression?

In general, most people found the experience very intriguing and provocative. Although only few people could immediately say what the dance was (voguing), everyone understood the queer reference. Everyone thought it was a funny and comical experience to see the NPCs to move in such a manner.

How did your impression changed as you played?

People's impression didn't really change as they played as it was a short experience. Most people asked why one NPC was dancing by themselves while the other three were dancing together. 

Was there anything you found frustrating?

Most people wanted to participate with the dancers instead of being a bystander, while other wanted the space to be more dynamic to showcase the dance in different ways and in different spatial configurations. 

Most people found that it was frusrating to use the WASD keys and mouse to move the player around. 

Did the experience drag at any point?

Nobody thought the experience dragged at any point.

Were there particular aspects that you found satisfying?

Everyone loved seeing the moment when all the NPCs started to dance in unison.

Did the experience feel too long, too short or just about right?

Everyone thought the gamer experience was too short and needed more interaction/gameplay.

Open Discussion

Emilia brought up that the prototype conjures images of revolution and army which has strong masculine connotations. She thought that it was interesting to see guns being connected to such queer bodily movements. She mentioned a club in Mexico City called Patrick MIller that brings together both gay and straight men to vogue, cross dress and party. The reference to revolution and army being extremely masculine made me bring up a famous Chinese Communist ballet called the Red Detachment of Women made in 1964 as one of the Eight Model Operas that the Chinese Communist Government created officially during the Cultural Revolution. The ballet "adapted from the earlier 1961 film of the same title under the personal direction of Zhou Enlai, which in turn adapted from the novel by Liang Xin, it depicts the liberation of a peasant girl in Hainan Island and her rise in the Chinese Communist Party. This was an interesting conversation that I will bank in my memory for later, but right now it doesn't play any major significance other than noting the feminine imagery within masculine depictions and movements of the revolution. 


Red Detachment of Women, 1964

Jad and I talked about the UI and how it was a little confusing and disorientating that it presented the name of the player as "Cowboy" and the dancers as enemies. Interesting I almost never noticed them, but that is probably because I am not an UI designer and don't really care about the UI and the HUB design as much as other elements. I decided to turn the UI canvas off for the rest of the testings since it wasn't important at this stage. 

There were a lot of discussion on the expectations and meanings of guns. They are tools of violence, machines to kill, and yet the NPCs are dancing with them, turning them into props like a baton or a ribbon instead. On the other hand, the player has a gun that they can use to shoot, and the NPCs will take damage until they eventually die. Max (who didn't play test this time around, but did play test the earlier version), made a comment while Roxanne was playing, "you've made a homo killing game!" This is of course not my intention, but the prototype as of now could be seen as a "homo killing game". This means I will have to change this for Thursday final presentation. 

Synthesize with Previous User Testing Session


The last user testing was less about testing the experience and more playing around with the concept of the shooter. However, I did gain valuable insight by making non-gamers play a shooter. For this testing, it was interesting to once again test across users with all gaming background. However it proves that I still have a big hurdle; how do I solve the player movement issue? I believe that I need to map my player movement to a controller rather than using a mouse and keyboard. 


Thesis Research Question


RQ 1: What is heteoropia's relationship to queer theory and play theory? And how can we then use it as a tool for queer spatial/corporeal analysis for video games?


RQ 2: How does a queer understanding of heterotopia help us understand video games as potential queer space?

RQ 3: How does queer play influence spatial orientation and disorientation inside video games?

The prototype has helped me move froward in addressing my research question by showing me how powerful and significant it is to overtly display queerness in a video game setting. However, it has not addressed my question in a direct manner. Firstly, no play is involved at the moment as the prototype simply requires the player to witness and watch the performance. Lastly, the space of the level in the game doesn't change, shift or cause disorientation in the player.


Increasingly so, through the user testings I have done, I realize that video games are in fact, truly heterotopic through using a queer phenomenological way of understanding the act of playing video games. I want to explore and unpack this thought further but right now I am curious at how one must interact, in close proximity with the controllers, mouse and keyboards in order to "play" the game. The game doesn't have a life on its own if we don't interact with it, its meanings, its context and identity only exist through a co-dwelling with bodies that play games. The bodies coexist with the games, and the world unfolds around this co-existence through a close proximate interaction between bodies and games. However, the video game, unlike the hard edges and straight lines of lets say the writing table, has the multiplicity of affordances, which gives it its queerness. Moreover, the video game, which rarely is another world that replicates everything that is possibly in the physical world into a virtual dimension (unless it is the Sims or Second Life but even then many would argue if Second Life is even a game), is then not a virtual world (or VR) or another space that exists outside of the physical world, but in fact are heterotopic spaces that sits in the real but has extensions into the digital. Heterotopic because one it very much exists here in our world and not on a virtual level and two, has its own set of rules, mechanics that are simpler reflections of the affordances that we have in the physical world.



Actions Points

1. Give the player abilities to dance and move with the dancers 


2. Allow the shape of the space to change as the game progresses; shifting walls, new spaces that manifest after key game play moments, give the space more dynamism, disorientate the player through spatial reconfiguration.


3. Try multiplayer 


Further down the line


4. Where is the shooter in this new game? Who are the enemies if the dancers are not? 


5. What is the story? Where is the level? 


6. What is the meaning of the dance? What is it suggesting?


7. How to engage in the dance? Does it require a certain code? a certain gesture or look? To solve a puzzle?

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