User Testing

1. Ideation/Sketch

2. Research and Style

3. Execute Adobe Illustrator

Using a multitude of online tutorials, I amalgamated the knowledge I retained from them into the vision we had for our game. Using tutorials for both side-platformer games and infinI reatainedite sidescrolling games, I took the concepts from them and compiled them into our first level. For both levels I used Phaser as an additional library to aid in the game functionality. For the second level, I referenced Mario in the aspect of jumping and hitting the box to garner a response, and I used Phaser’s own references and documentation to implement the actions we ended up with. I tried where I could to maintain our original vision, and where we could not I went for the next best thing. To create the maps for each level I used a program called Tiled, a pay-what-you-can download from itch.io. It is used to create tile maps which can be implemented using Phaser, to smooth along the process of making a side-scrolling game.

Programming

Wandering Wanda - Konur

00:00

sound. Secondly, in logic, the wobble and EQ were managed in order to create an old computer sound. After tweaking the serum controls and finding the proper pitch for the 8 bit style music, the songs and sound were played and recorded through an Alesis piano/keyboard. Compressors were later added in logic to keep the high (frequencies) and low (frequencies) at certain levels, allowing our game sound to be crisp and have no cutoff or clipping. The finished sounds and level themes were then converted to .wav format in order to be implemented into the code of our game.

Visual Design

User testing is the last step after we set up the game. It is used to evaluate the game by representative users. The goal is to identify any usability problems, collect qualitative and quantitative data and determine the participant's satisfaction of the product. First of all, we selected the target audience including males and females. We invited our friends and roommates to be the representative users. Then, we set up a room with three laptops. We scheduled three users at a time to try out the game. Meanwhile, two designers stayed in the room and watched representative users play the game. Body language is what we focused, like squinting eyes, hunched shoulders, shaking heads, and studied their interactions. Finally, we found the bugs and squashed them to make sure that as many people can play it as possible.

Design Process

Research

After listening to both presentations about the Five Ways to Wellbeing, we made a list of all of the information we saw to be the most important, and we continued to read through several articles about mental health and wellbeing, and what other countries are doing to introduce solutions. We decided very early from our research that the best demographic to target was women, specifically women who work and have children. Amongst doing our research, we discovered that women are the most at-risk for mental health illnesses, and that they are the most likely to be unhappy.

The majority of our research process was discovering ways to tailor our game to appeal to women. We researched colour theory to help guide our colour palette decisions, discovered how women interpret colour, and also decided what kind of gaming platform we wanted to create. It was also important to us when doing our research to investigate how we can avoid sexism in character development and in the game environment as that is a very common issue in modern games.

Ideation

Ideation/Brainstorming After we had an established target market, we took to the drawing board to begin ideating solutions to teach women about the five ways to wellbeing. We were very open to different ideas and mainly worked with paper and white boards to illustrate game ideas, level concepts, platform choices, etc.

Sound Design

The sound design for Wandering Wanda was created in a program called Logic Pro X on a Mac desktop computer. To begin, we utilized a plug-in MIDI instrument known as ‘Serum’ that was purchased online. This plug in (with some tweaking) allows for an electronic

About

The five ways of wellbeing was founded by New Economics Foundation (NEF) in 2008 when they were commissioned by the UK Government’s Foresight project on Mental Capital and Wellbeing to develop a set of evidence-based actions to improve personal wellbeing. After two years of an extensive research, NEF was able to define the subjective ‘well being’ and was also able to solidify what the ‘Five ways to Well Being’ needed to be. The ‘Five Ways to Well Being’ is an evidence-based action that encourages people to maintain “A dynamic state in which the individual is able to develop their potential, work and productivity and creatively build strong and positive relationships with others and contribute to their community.” (Foresight Review. 2008). This universal checklist includes: Be active, Take Notice, Connect, Keep Learning, and Give.

Be active encourages people to discover a physical activity that suits your level of mobility and fitness, and inspires one to go and perform that physical activity. Taking notice emboldens one to savour the moment, stop and smell the roses, and take time to recognize beauty with the idea that reflecting on your experiences will help you appreciate what is important to you. Connect suggests forming and strengthening relationships, getting involved with the community, and investing time to develop these connections. Keep Learning emphasises the importance of trying something new, rediscovering old interests, and challenging yourself to reassure confidence in oneself. Lastly, give encourages you to do something nice for a friend or volunteer your time in order and is strongly linked with self happiness.