December UPA Meeting hears Games Design Principles and plays EyeToy

It's not much fun playing a game that offers you a button saying 'Play Here to Win' and then, when you press it, produces a screen saying 'You win - Play Again?' quipped Gerred Blyth of amberlight partners, addressing the December UPA meeting with colleague Gigi Demming. But that, he asserted, is the 'usability view' of games design...

The two of them went on to give a few tips on testing for enjoyment before giving the UPA audience a chance to try out their latest project with Sony: EyeToy, a system that projects users onto the screen and allows them to interact with screen objects.

Tips included:
* If it's a fun task, provide a fun environment: booze for karaoke games; a home environment for EyeToy.
* Learn the distinction between barriers that are detrimental to the experience of the game and those that are part of the experience.
* Learn the language of the industry, for instance that NPC means 'non-person character'.
* Users are very tolerant of unfinished goods, in fact they often can't believe that they are being paid to do it so they have to be encouraged to critique it.

Then came the games...
Unfortunately for the prospect of winning, yours truly's was the first name out of the hat to stand in front of the audience and look silly that night. I was followed by Caroline Jarrett of Effortmark, Owen Daly-Jones of Serco and Annie Drynan of Agency.com in trying to hit objects that rapidly appeared and disappeared in a mirror image of the screen - sometimes rotated left/right and sometimes up/down. It may please those readers who know the participatnts to hear that I came second, after Annie.

Highlight of the evening, though, was still to come, when the UPA's Nigel Bevan tackled the kung-fu game. He didn't score the highest, but he did put on the best performance. Watched as part of playing a game on the screen, of course, his movements looked effective... however, taken out of context, they appear to be a curious dance. One can see why a home environment to test in might be advisable.

Associated Link: Amberlight's briefing on designing for Emotion and Enjoyment

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