Camera Implementation and Testing

Camera Implementation and Testing Overview

What the player can and cannot see affects the emotional response of the player. As such, to align with the emotional goals of the game, user-testing was performed to guide the Camera's functionality.

Testing

Testing Method

To guide the implementation of the camera, user-testing was performed in the following way:

1. Allow the player to use the camera in the first day and night of the game
2. Ask them to answer the following form

Results

3 Responses were collected as part of the user-tests

Overall Experience

1. the camera moved faster than i thought it would so it was hard to keep track of where my character was when looking around the map. this was also cause the character was so small compared to everything else on the screen. i also found it hard to get the camera to zoom to where i wanted it to because of how fast it was
2. Overall, the camera felt like it was necessary in concept, but makes the game harder to play. I found it hard at night to simultaneously find where I was AND find where the enemies were. If I zoomed all the way out, I could see the enemies, but I could not see myself. After zooming in on myself (which was difficult to do), it was hard to follow myself around the map as the panning of the camera was much faster than I was. Furthermore, when I was trying to explore the left side of the map with my character, I lost the game as I did not realise there were enemies attacking the crystal.
3. The camera was helpful in being able to see around the map without moving but it was also tedious to use cause it was so sensitive

How much of the map should you be able to see?

1. not very far. it was hard to find myself again after moving the camera away from myself
2. Ideally, the camera would only be able to see me. I don't like the idea of being able to see more than what the character would be able to see, but removing this would mean being unable to know when the crystal is being attacked.
3. I liked being able to see the entire map

How do you think the Camera should interact with the player?

Are there any changes you would like to see in how the Camera works?

1. i think it would be helpful to have a button you can press that would move the camera back to yourself
2. None that I haven't mentioned thus far.
3. Make the camera less sensitive

Evaluation and Analysis

There were a few key points gained from user-testing that guided the implementation:

1. The camera was far too sensitive, both in zoom and panning speed
2. It's currently difficult to re-find the player character after panning away from them
3. Allowing the player to see the entire map ruined the immersion

As such, the following changes/additions will be made to the implementation of the Camera

1. Adjusting the zoom and panning speed to be more controllable
2. Add a method to pan back to the player after panning away from them