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Appendix F: Participant Response Survey Comments
The following are the collected responses to the question "Comments? If you have any other comments to share about the game or this survey that didn't seem to fit elsewhere, please enter them here."
Group TS - Captain Fate, Text UI
- sorry if my review was skewed by the slowness with which it ran. it's probably a problem on my end. but then again, i'm not the only person with such problems :)
- Make more intuitive commands. Make secondary actions possible like interacting with other customers when they mock you.
- I found this form of game interesting, because I actually formed text-based game in my ICS 313 (Programming Language Theory) class with a group last semester in LISP, so I was glad to see something like this again. I was expecting a bit more tries, since I lost and I didn't know what the entire goal of the game was, but if it was to change clothes in public, I wish the game was a little bit more elaborate than that. Since the game is almost linear, there should also be more directions in the game to traverse.
- Games like this probably could be more easily designed by simply recording what some users attempt to do as they are presented with the situations--players want the game to feel like it has intuitive controls (or in this case commands). Having to consult the help menu for the specific grammar of each command pretty much made immersion in the game world impossible.
- The HELP command, while useful, could use more information. I was trying to figure out what commands I could use and on more than one occasion, thought I hit a dead end.
- I think I just don't enjoy text-based games.
Group ST - Captain Fate, Skald UI
- When I was wearing my suit (I also dropped my ordinary clothes), I examined myself and it said I looked "the same as usual" which I found strange. Also I wonder how the scoring worked. When the game ended I had earned 2 out of 2 points, but i didn't know we were earning points.
- WHY COULDNT I PAY BENNY??????
- the action commands were confusing, especially trying to figure out how to go into the restroom once I got the key, also, is the lack of money to pay for coffee intentional. Why can't I attack Benny. Interesting game though, it was fun
- The ending was a little abrupt, and I wonder about some of the other things I could have tried, but that is inevitable with my time constraints.
- For a game where you can't see the world, it would be nice to have some more of the little things in there.
Group TS - The Queen's Heart, Skald UI
- this game ran ten times faster than the other one.
- I'd like to play this one again to see if I can save the queen.
- Holy shit, that was an excellent story.
- The UI definitely was better, but the game was still basically unplayable. I would never inflict it on an undergraduate; I have a pretty high patience with games. I've played a few MUDs but never for very long, but never for very long. These sorts of games place a very high value on very specific physical spaces... north north south south, when text-based games just are not geared toward strict spatial limits (obviously). They should be driven by purpose-driven spaces. I kept wanting to quick travel, or just press E or W to move east and west (rather than typing east or west). This may seem like a minor complaint (especially given the shortness of the game, or at least my experience with it) but since the descriptions of the hallway after the mole disappears (I failed to eat it :/) were so scarce it felt pointless to manually type out the words or click twice to get to the East/West option. In some I preferred the single buttons at the top for movement between zones from the first game, even though this game certainly had a lot more going on and a better UI aside from that. I still feel like the "glammer" (or however it was spelled) mechanic needed to be introduced earlier. I spent about 3 minutes trying to get a sense of how to talk with the girl (who falls through the hole) before just giving up. I had no idea why she couldn't see me and why I wasn't supposed to directly interact with her.
- I really wish that I could replay this game.
- I kind of want to play it over again so I can see if there's a way to rescue the girl instead of (totally accidentally) killing her.
Group ST - The Queen's Heart, Text UI
- The story ended very abruptly causing me to see the game as more of an interactive story, rather than an adventure game. I was very immersed in the story.
- I really like the game. The ending was unique and sad, but I liked it.
- not sure if I succeeded or failed in this game
- I was not too clear as to what the goal of the game was. Some more flavor text in the beginning could go a long way. Text based games are all about the writing in my opinion.
