I had one of my suite mates playtest my game who had no knowledge of the concept beforehand. The main questions I wanted answered were about how well the mechanics worked and how the player felt both during and after playing my game.

Because the game was at a very early stage in creation there were not many UI elements included at the time, such as text instructions, so I did have to quickly explain some of the mechanics but made sure to step back after saying at that was needed. This prompted me to think more about the specifics of how I needed to incorporate instructions and how important it is that they are thorough enough without being invasive.

During the playtest the issues of incentive and action came up with my jellyfish scene, in which the object of the game is to avoid or destroy oncoming predators. At the time all that I had was a single predator, which brought up the need for multiple and the importance of timing. The predator was coming in too fast which didn’t allow for much exploration and understanding of the level itself before being thrown in, and because of this players are inclined to freak out and shoot very fast which makes the kill too quick as it needed only three bullets. However once the player has an understanding it is then more effective to create that sense of urgency and panic because the game becomes rather boring if there is not much to do. Because of these issues I ended up changing the rates at which turtles come into the scene and increasing how difficult it is to eliminate them.

My play tester also mentioned the possibility of some kind of incentive, which was something I had thought about before but was unsure of how I should go about implementation. She felt that some players may need a more goal oriented game and might otherwise become frustrated or bored by the lack of a real end goal or a promise of reward. Because I wanted the gameplay to be more about the environment and exploration I chose to not include incentives such as prizes, but seeing as each level did need to have a definitive end and the points made about players needing something to work toward I did decide to add in some additional elements such as a score counter, values for items and kills/survival depending on the scene.

Overall my play tester thought that the game was successful in providing a calming underwater experience as far as aesthetics and mechanics, and most of her suggestions had to do with timing or the need for additional UI elements to make the experience easier and more enjoyable.