Slide Baby User Feedback
When I began making this game, I set out with two primary motivations: make something cute for people to enjoy playing. In my first pursuit I believe I was successful. Slide baby was designed to be adorable and most users unanimously agree that it was, however enjoyable to play… hmmmm, that required investigation. I sent my game to over 10 people in my program and other areas of my life to test for playability. While some aspects of the game need improvement just by nature of it being unfinished, user feedback is always important in every process and iteration of design in order to avoid spending time and energy on features that are unimportant to a user. While a lot of the feedback I received was expected, I was given some interesting insights that I did not expect. Some of these incites I incorporated into the final, and some I discarded or put on a to-do-later list.
Most users said the game was easy to understand, but were unsure about controls so to reiterate the user control functions I added an instruction page after the introduction. Users noted that the landscape became monotonous relatively quickly, so I added more natural elements to the scenery. User suggestions for additional levels included a water scene, ski mountain scene, and an ice hopping scene. I have started by adding a water level, and will continue to add levels as the game develops. Another recurrent comment I received was that the enemies were not intimidating enough (fair… they are really cute polar bears) so I made the bears larger and adjusted their point impact, as well as increased the point text size to emphasize the cost of running into a polar bear. The water level incorporates slightly more formidable enemies however the graphics are still (currently) in progress.
I am generally excited about all of this feedback and am looking forward to continuing to update the game. If you, reader, are interested in trying the game and providing feedback, please play Slide Baby Slide at https://clarafairbanks.itch.io/slide-baby-slide — a survey is attached in the game description.