Reflection Journal
Seventh Cycle - 04/27/05
Honing in on instructions:
Anika Francis and I had a long discussion about my project's instructions. Seems that what I had was too technical and dry.
From our brainstorming session, I've decided to create a problem to introduce the puzzle and motivate the users to play the game. The story will be about a lost Octopus and her friend Glowpig (to tie into the stop-animation). It will challenge the user to help the Octopus find her home. This also ties in with the title of my project: "Who Owns the Octopus?"
In addition to the instruction problem, it seems that my puzzle may be too hard. I think some of this stems from the vague "check answer" button and useless feedback. Instead of doing this, (checking terminal answers - if all the objects are with the right house), I'll write a series of questions for the user to answer as they work through the puzzle.
I can reorder the clues to give them immediate items to match with the houses. Then, I can ask questions that are either obvious or require the user to contemplate the relationships of objects that have not been associated with the houses. This should encourage them to see patterns for deduction and reasoning. From doing the puzzle SO many times, I see that there are specific points where a user may struggle with the clues. To aid in their experience, if they answer certain questions right, I'll give them two extra clues. This should reduce the frustration level considerably.
See final project.
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I've separated the project into three .swfs, one for the intro and instructions, one for the puzzle, and one for the movie. After a lot of trial-and-error, I figured out the issue with the draggable items by treating a dynamic text button as a trace field. |
