{"author_link":"\/users\/bentebent","author_name":"Bentebent","author_uid":"bentebent","comments":[],"epoch":1587458959,"event":"LD46","format":"md","ldjam_node_id":204592,"likes":2,"metadata":{"p_key":"143037","p_author":"Bentebent","p_authorkey":"1078349","p_urlkey":"359448","p_title":"Lessons learned so far","p_cat":"LDJam ","p_event":"LD46","p_time":"1587458959","p_likes":"2","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":"1078349","us_name":"Bentebent","us_username":"bentebent","event_start":"1587081600","event_key":"77","event_name":"Ludum Dare 46"},"node":{"_collation":{"body_sanitizer":"TextUtils::SanitizeHTML via existing importer","event":"LD46","removed_author":false},"_superparent":176557,"_trust":1,"author":78349,"body":"![blog.png](\/\/\/raw\/d02\/31\/z\/313ab.png)\n\nWe have had two common problems reported so far in the feedback we have received (thanks everyone, you have been lovely) so I figured we could take a look at them and see what could have been done differently.\n\nFirst one was that wires wind up outside of the camera view in some puzzles which makes it impossible to pick them up. You can see this potentially happening in the lower right corner looking at the top image. The solution for this is for the user to hold right click and move the camera, which will let them pick up those wires. As simple as this solution is for the user, it's not entirely obvious that it's possible! We tried to communicate this feature by having instructions scrolling on the monitor during the first level but it goes by quite fast and lacks any strong visual indicator that drags the player's view there. You can see the text scrolling in the image below and how we tried to focus the player's view on this.\n\n![monitor.png](\/\/\/raw\/d02\/31\/z\/313e9.png)\n\nThe end result seems to be that a few players end up not seeing the instruction and they get stuck which is understandable, not everyone has the time to fully explore gamejam games! In retrospect I think it might have been worth to have this feature clearly communicated in obvious text, either in the main menu or maybe as a tip while loading the first level.\n\n\nSecond issue seems to stem from our keypad puzzles which are all non-trivial, some quite hard even. We have a few of these but let's look at the \"counting puzzle\". When this panel breaks, a numeric code is generated, let's say \"8501\". The number of lights equals the number that the user should input into the keypad and on successful input the lights change, so after inputting \"8\", 5 lights will be lit instead of 8. Below you can see it first in its working state and then it its broken state.\n\n![keypadworking.PNG](\/\/\/raw\/d02\/31\/z\/313c8.png)\n![keypadbroken.PNG](\/\/\/raw\/d02\/31\/z\/313c9.png)\n\nA few players have had problems solving these and from what we have gathered it is mostly due to poor feedback from the keypad itself! We have a sound queue that plays when the _entire_ code is correctly input and that means the player does not get instant feedback on individual button presses, which makes them question if they input the correct number. \n\nSome players also had problems with not being able to press these buttons at all, not realizing they need to hold down the left mouse button until it \"clicks\". A sound is played when the button is fully pressed so the player knows when to stop pressing (different from the \"code successful\" sound) but if the players don't know this they will never get there! This has not been a problem with the big red buttons where you can clearly see it animate towards the fully pressed state and I think this tells us that keypad buttons should probably have a faster pressing speed because they are not big enough to have an easily readable animation.\n\nOverall, I think we did decently for having developed this \"in a bubble\" without any significant end-user testing. At one point we considered having a significantly slower ramp-up of the difficulty, where the player has to beat variations of individual puzzles but we decided against this because we felt it would be too slow considering how little time is spent by the players for each individual gamejam game. In retrospect it might have been better to collect all the hardest puzzles on day 2 (it's about 2-3 of them) and make sure the player has enough time to learn them before going on to day 3 where the game really starts.\n\nThis went on longer than I expected but it's good to take a look at your failures to do bother at the next opportunity. Again, thanks to everyone who played our game so far, all feedback is good feedback! Last time I posted I promised a look at our scrapped puzzles but I felt this was more interesting, _next_ time I promise I'll talk about those ;)\n\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=E2j5bvhvsqU\n\nWant to see for yourself? Check it out here! https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/46\/pull-the-levers","comments":0,"created":"2020-04-21T07:23:17Z","files":[],"files-timestamp":0,"id":204592,"love":2,"love-timestamp":"2020-04-21T09:13:17Z","meta":[],"modified":"2020-04-21T09:13:17Z","name":"Lessons learned so far","node-timestamp":"2020-04-21T08:55:55Z","parent":188751,"parents":[1,5,9,176557,188751],"path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/46\/pull-the-levers\/lessons-learned-so-far","published":"2020-04-21T08:49:19Z","scope":"public","slug":"lessons-learned-so-far","subsubtype":"","subtype":"","type":"post","version":613362},"node_metadata":{"n_key":"204592","n_urlkey":"359448","n_parent":"188751","n_path":"\/events\/ludum-dare\/46\/pull-the-levers\/lessons-learned-so-far","n_slug":"lessons-learned-so-far","n_type":"post","n_subtype":"","n_subsubtype":"","n_author":"78349","n_created":"1587453797","n_modified":"1587460397","n_version":"613362","n_status":"WAYBACK"},"source_url":"https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/46\/pull-the-levers\/lessons-learned-so-far","text":"![blog.png](\/\/\/raw\/d02\/31\/z\/313ab.png)\n\nWe have had two common problems reported so far in the feedback we have received (thanks everyone, you have been lovely) so I figured we could take a look at them and see what could have been done differently.\n\nFirst one was that wires wind up outside of the camera view in some puzzles which makes it impossible to pick them up. You can see this potentially happening in the lower right corner looking at the top image. The solution for this is for the user to hold right click and move the camera, which will let them pick up those wires. As simple as this solution is for the user, it's not entirely obvious that it's possible! We tried to communicate this feature by having instructions scrolling on the monitor during the first level but it goes by quite fast and lacks any strong visual indicator that drags the player's view there. You can see the text scrolling in the image below and how we tried to focus the player's view on this.\n\n![monitor.png](\/\/\/raw\/d02\/31\/z\/313e9.png)\n\nThe end result seems to be that a few players end up not seeing the instruction and they get stuck which is understandable, not everyone has the time to fully explore gamejam games! In retrospect I think it might have been worth to have this feature clearly communicated in obvious text, either in the main menu or maybe as a tip while loading the first level.\n\n\nSecond issue seems to stem from our keypad puzzles which are all non-trivial, some quite hard even. We have a few of these but let's look at the \"counting puzzle\". When this panel breaks, a numeric code is generated, let's say \"8501\". The number of lights equals the number that the user should input into the keypad and on successful input the lights change, so after inputting \"8\", 5 lights will be lit instead of 8. Below you can see it first in its working state and then it its broken state.\n\n![keypadworking.PNG](\/\/\/raw\/d02\/31\/z\/313c8.png)\n![keypadbroken.PNG](\/\/\/raw\/d02\/31\/z\/313c9.png)\n\nA few players have had problems solving these and from what we have gathered it is mostly due to poor feedback from the keypad itself! We have a sound queue that plays when the _entire_ code is correctly input and that means the player does not get instant feedback on individual button presses, which makes them question if they input the correct number. \n\nSome players also had problems with not being able to press these buttons at all, not realizing they need to hold down the left mouse button until it \"clicks\". A sound is played when the button is fully pressed so the player knows when to stop pressing (different from the \"code successful\" sound) but if the players don't know this they will never get there! This has not been a problem with the big red buttons where you can clearly see it animate towards the fully pressed state and I think this tells us that keypad buttons should probably have a faster pressing speed because they are not big enough to have an easily readable animation.\n\nOverall, I think we did decently for having developed this \"in a bubble\" without any significant end-user testing. At one point we considered having a significantly slower ramp-up of the difficulty, where the player has to beat variations of individual puzzles but we decided against this because we felt it would be too slow considering how little time is spent by the players for each individual gamejam game. In retrospect it might have been better to collect all the hardest puzzles on day 2 (it's about 2-3 of them) and make sure the player has enough time to learn them before going on to day 3 where the game really starts.\n\nThis went on longer than I expected but it's good to take a look at your failures to do bother at the next opportunity. Again, thanks to everyone who played our game so far, all feedback is good feedback! Last time I posted I promised a look at our scrapped puzzles but I felt this was more interesting, _next_ time I promise I'll talk about those ;)\n\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=E2j5bvhvsqU\n\nWant to see for yourself? Check it out here! https:\/\/ldjam.com\/events\/ludum-dare\/46\/pull-the-levers","title":"Lessons learned so far","wayback_source":[]}