Designer’s Notes From Trinity
“Hey team, I think our target audiences are a bit younger than we think.”
“Why?”
“Because the kids laughed the hardest during playtest day!”
Weekly Update
Welcome to our Week 10 update! This week’s focus was concluding our recent playtest day for “It Takes Three” and diving deep into the feedback and data collected. The results were overwhelmingly positive and provided us with fantastic insights to guide our next development phase.
Concluding Playtest Day: Initial Feedback
The atmosphere was electric, and the feedback was exceptional. We received high praise from both young and adult playtesters, including memorable quotes such as:
- “This is the best room.” – one young player in the morning session
- “I want more levels!” – nearly all groups
The playtest was structured to guide players through the core experience, covering the Lobby, Level 101, Level HalvesVer, and the Credit Scene (slingshot).
Diving into the Data
We collected various forms of data to analyze player behavior and experience:
- Player reactions (video recording)
- In-game footage (PC view)
- Meta data (qualitative coding)
Key Insights: What Defines Fun?
The data helped us pinpoint two major indicators of player “Fun”:
- Fun = Players Want to Play More: This was a clear signal when players expressed wanting to play more levels or even tried to play the game again using different devices.
- Fun = Laughs: We observed that young players (below 18) had the most laughs, by impression. Additionally, the more familiar the players were with each other, the more laughs we recorded.
The Slingshot Scene Highlight
The Credit Scene, featuring the slingshot mechanic, was a major hit! Players loved it, and we saw plenty of emergent (improvised) gameplay. This is where the magic happens, and players were clearly having a blast with co-operative, creative actions:
- “I want to slingshot the cat.”
- “Let us (the cat & jetpack) catch the ball while you (VR) slingshot it.”
- “Let’s crash down the cup tower together.”
Assessing Our Player Experience Goals
Our overarching goal for the playtest was to ensure each player felt three things: Fun, Significance, and Connection. Here is how we assessed those goals:
| Player Experience Goal | Assessment Metric | Results |
| Fun | Unique & Comfortable Gameplay | Achieved; players actively engaged in their roles and wanted to play others’ roles |
| Significance | Influence the game | Achieved; everybody’s contribution was recognized by others. |
| Connection | Synchronized with each other | Achieved; Measured by the overall atmosphere in the room, their mood, and laughs. |
All in all, Playtest Day was a massive success, validating our core gameplay loops and providing a clear path forward. Stay tuned for next week as we begin to integrate these key findings into our development sprint!
Why Slingshot is Fun? Physics and “Beer Effect”
OK, we know that our playtest day version of game works to generate laughs among players, but what exactly works?
We concluded two factors that contribute to fun: physics and “beer effect”
Physics
When seeing slingshot alone, it involves more physical interactions than our previous game mechanics: Phone’s jetpack boost, PC’s cat locomotion and VR’s platform manipulation are more programmed than physical.
But why the more physical our game is, the more fun it will be?
Physics allows for more interactions between players. Physics is a system that is shared among all player entities in the game scene. Physics thus becomes the middle ground for players to affect each other.
One VR player tries to pick up the cat with the slingshot, and, manages to launch the cat (PC & Phone) to sky by shooting a pellet towards it. The pellet was accelerated by the slingshot and bump the cat to the sky upon hit.
We certainly didn’t plan for that, but it creates a burst of laughs among that group of players!
Such interpersonal interactions allow emergent gameplay. Players can create their own ways of play, and perhaps it was both meaningful and fun to them.
“Beer Effect”
A beer is the most enjoyable after a day’s hard work, we call it “beer effect”. All the negative feelings accumulated in the hard work burst out upon drinking that beer. Without the hard work, the beer will not be that enjoyable.
We also notice that the slingshot level happens right after a challenging level. The beer effect also applies to this scenario.
Plan for Next
Since players like Slingshot so much, we decided to make it more playable. What if, VR player can slingshot the cat?
Also, since most of the playtesters completed the game within 7 minutes and wanted more levels, we make more levels for them.