“Players do not just engage in ready-made gameplay but also actively take part in the construction of these experience: they bring their desieres, anticipations, and previous experiences with them, and interpret and reflect the experience in that light.” (Ermi & Mayra)
Video
Game researchers Ermi and Mayra touch on the concept of previous experience and
how they relate to video games. For most video games, the previous controller
experience allows a user to pick up the game and play almost immediately. A
user can pick up a controller and, based on the type of game, infer how the
input device will work. Ermi and Mayra write about using previous experience to
inform the player and to enhance satisfaction. For Heroes of Rock, we
encountered a particularly challenging previous experience scenario. Our game
was selected because of the use of a guitar peripheral. The guitar was our
marketing exclamation point and it was the core of the game. Being bound to the
guitar presented a slew of design problems especially surrounding previous user
experiences.
When
I was designing the gameplay for Heroes of Rock, I designed the controls around
my experiences playing side scrolling action games and my experiences using a
guitar peripheral. Side scrolling action games have a pretty standard set of
mechanics and all gamers are familiar with their control schemes. There is no
standard way of playing a real guitar or bass and there is no standard way of
playing Guitar Hero or Rock Band. It was apparent in our first play testing
session that almost every player had a different way of using the input device.
Some players sat down to use the controller, some players used the strap to
hold the guitar, some players help the guitar with their strumming hand, some
players used their thumbs to strum while others used fingers and so on. All
play testers had different feelings on our control scheme because they had different
experiences informing them on how the game should play. We played around with
multiple control schemes. We received equally positive and negative feedback on
nearly every system. We were never going to make 100% of our play testing group
happy because their previous experiences were just too different.
We scrapped thousands of lines of codes, dozens of design
documents, and hours of art production as we constantly shifted on how the game
was going to function. This process took a toll on the team morale and made
progress difficult for every aspect of the game. The element of our game that
got us selected and that made our game so interesting was the most difficult.
This design problem was my greatest weakness as a leader on this project. I was
hoping that we could find a control mechanic that would satisfy more people on
our team and more play testers. Some schemes did better than others, some were
received poorly but I constantly felt that we could find something better than
what we were doing. I felt like there had to be some system that would feel
natural to players. This is when our understanding of previous experiences
became important.
Based
on the diversity of player experiences, no control scheme is going to be natural
to all players. For our game, we couldn’t rely on previous experiences to
inform the players and if we did, it might lesson the experience. To make our
game feel appropriate on the guitar, we had to design mechanics that informed
the player of how to play, rather than relying on what players have already
learned. To settle on a final control scheme, we focused on the core of the
game and what we were trying to accomplish.
