Usability and the gaming industry II

Controls
People have different preferences; do you use your computer mouse on the left or right of your keyboard? Games should also allow players to have control of their controls. Provide the ability to remap controller buttons to suit personal preferences.

Having controls that don’t do what a player expects will lead to frustration and loss of interest in the game.

Don’t over complicate controllers by thinking every button must be used. If there isn’t the need for it, don’t do it.

Remember to consider the menu system, and objects within the game. Opening doors, swapping weapons, jumping onto ledges…

Tutorials/Learnability
Create a safe environment to make mistakes. Players need to try buttons, actions, and commands to see what is and isn’t possible.

Tutorials are important, they should always have a level of engagement for the player to see how they will become immersed in the game. Do not leave the creation of tutorials to the end of the development of the game.

Gradually introduce sophistication in game play throughout the game. New things to do should be introduced to the player bit by bit, not all at once.

Use loading screens to educate the player in new skills.

Menu systems
Entering/exiting games...
Allow the player to press any button to start a game. Don’t make them unnecessarily stop and think about how to start.

Once players have cleared a section of a game, it should then be available for them from the start menu so they can go back to it if they wish. Allowing players to jump in and out of game play as they wish will increase game play. Making it difficult to enter a game where they want is more likely to result in the player switching off the console.

Saving games...
If you give players the option to save their game at an appointed place, once they’ve reached the save place, don’t ask them if they want to save.

What’s the best way to allow players to save games?

• Save at an arbitrary point,
• after a task has been completed,
• at particular save points within the game,
• quick saves.

Quick save might not be required depending on the games difficulty level, but providing the facility for those who wish to use it is a good balance. I liked the Resident Evil save, where you collect typewriter ribbons so the save is built in as part of the game play, although this is due to change with the release of Resident Evil 5. The long and short of it is that the save function should depend on the particular game. Testing should be done to see how players would expect to save.

Pausing games...
All players need to be able to pause a game knowing they will not lose anything. How this is done should depend on the game. ‘Guitar Hero World Tour’ deals with pausing well, players are given a countdown of 5 beats to get back on track. This could be further improved by allowing the player to decide how many beats they require.

Other features...
Swapping between easy and advanced modes should be easy. Whether it is the single player who wants more advanced game situations and wants to swap, or whether it’s two people paying one after another at different levels. Quite often it can be a frustrating experience to swap between modes, and can put new players off a game if it is difficult to choose easy.

Cut scenes
Cut scenes are often used to advance the game plot, develop characters, and provide background stories, mood changes, essentially to immerse the player deep into the game. Many games are greatly enhanced with clever cut scenes.

Players should always be able to skip cut scenes. It is the player’s choice that matters, not how important the scenes are to the story.

Ensure cut scenes have subtitles, and use a clear font. Even if players don’t listen to the whole thing, they can skim read conversations.

Game play
A game should be a challenge to play, not a challenge to use. Players should not have to sit for hours trying to work out how to do a particular jump to get onto a higher up object. A player should always know what they can & can’t do, avoid the ‘what the hell am I supposed to be doing’ moment.

Get the player involved from the start. Don’t have a drawn out start to a game as they will become bored before even starting.

Give players the ability to change design features to make game play more interactive. E.g. in GTA, players have the ability to change the radio station in cars and the volume of music.

Allow players to reread mission instructions. If a player fails a mission, they should be able to reread the mission. If they have paused the game and gone back to it later, give the player the ability to reread missions throughout game play.

In order to reach levels of high emotional states, players must be given calm periods as well as high intensity periods. Tim Home uses a good analogy of a roller coaster to describe this. “The fun lies in going up and down on the ride. Staying at the same elevation is about as much fun as riding a monorail.” Having the game on a consistent level will tire the player out, or perhaps bore them stupid.

At the moment, I’m in the future racing league of WipEout HD for the PS3 which is a total joy - You can you go retro and have a similar look from when I was playing it in 1997. I feel like a child fighting over who's shot it is.