Knowing I would get a chance to test the game on a few other tutors of the design course, I wanted to add more functions to the game to give it the full range of possibilities. By giving them a highly functioning prototype, they could get the full experience and give me the best feedback and information through observation.
Before the testing I added the 'true' ending, the reward for players who explored the possibilities and played the 'wrong' way. The metrics could give a win condition, so all I needed to do was to check the way the player had played when they eventually got their car/house/wife, and give them this contrasting and jarring ending. Just as with the rest of the game, the specific meaning of the design of the true ending is not explicitly said, but it represents my take on what it might feel like to see the world in a different way after surviving an existential crisis. It also represents the view on life someone could have if they lived in the 'wrong' way. In Elder scrolls lore, I guess it's something like seeing the wheel from the side (deep lore).
The final results screen was next. Depending on the player getting a car/house/wife, the title would reflect their success, and underneath that I chose to give players a rating, determined by my metrics for their choices throughout the game. Through the rating, I hoped to show players that even if they 'won,' they still could have a bad life. I wanted to hint that there were other possible ways to win (and to live), and that by playing a different way (living a different way), they could win, and 'truly' win. The results also described the kinds of effects the players choices had over their life specifically. Through this I hope to get reflection on specific decisions to encourage them to change.
I then had the tutors play the game a few times. One played entirely with their own opinions driving them, they weren't interested in trying to get the good life. They wanted to win the game, but the difficulty they had from their choices really hit them. They didn't give me any feedback, but their playthrough of the game gave me a lot of direction in terms of how to frame parts of the game and give directions, to make sure players are more likely to play the way I intended them to. I wanted players to explore the alternative ways of playing as a result of rebelling against the directions given to them. Playing the way they personally feel about the decisions initially would not give the contrast I needed for the message to get across.
At this point I should discuss my intended method for getting across the message of the game, the message being linked to the song, that the good life is not so good, there are other ways to live a fulfilling life, and that there is much more to life. Much like the way a critical design project can play with the idea of what is normal and use value fictions to provoke reflection in the people interacting with it, the game tries to provoke reflection and insight into other ways of living life. I try to do this through playing with the idea of what is normal, and hyper-normalising the good life to the extent that it becomes ridiculous. Another tutor who tried the game on the day knows me well, and from the start he knew there was something more to the game than the simple 'right' way of playing. He saw into the critical design nature of the game immediately, and he set out to find both extremes of ending.
Through an unfortunate bug in the game at the time, he managed to find the secret ending, even though he had no wife when his life ran out. It was still good that he found it, he was able to experience both endings and discuss the game at length. From talking about the game with him, I realised that I needed to make a strong decision about the way I frame the decisions, as he suggested I make it easier for people to see the possibility of the secret ending. He suggested that the visual design of the game would probably need to look more aesthetically pleasing, and I agreed partly (he has quite high standards). Also we talked about the way the decisions show the player the potential changes in life remaining, and the way awareness and distraction could be used to build on the rushed feeling.
The main outcome from this testing was an iteration of the way the game communicated with players. The language used in the game needed to be much stronger, more directly showing them why they should choose the 'right' option. It needed to hyper-normalise the good life even more, to push it even further into ridiculousness, so it might better provoke reaction and rebellion in players. I didn't want to make it more easy for everyone to find the ending, but I agreed with the other tutor about needing to make it slightly easier to see the alternative in some way. By playing with the extreme representation of the good life, I feel it made it easier for players who choose to engage and explore the game to see the alternative. I really don't want everyone to find the secret ending. My reasoning for this is that it makes the sense of accomplishment in finding the secret ending much stronger, and the strength of this feeling might be enough positive emotion to encourage someone to reconsider the way they live in this satisfied and positive frame of mind. Although I designed it this way before reading Don Norman's Emotional Design, after reading the book I feel it's an even more justified decision.
Another change that came out of the testing was consistency between decisions. Previously, decisions were made in the doorway for objects that disappeared after a decision. Objects that depended on others (car, house, wife, loan) would only trigger a decision if the player got very close. The tutors both remarked that this conflicted with their expectations for decisions, and it impacted the emotional intensity and atmosphere by breaking the immersion. From this I chose to make the decisions for all events happen at the doorway.
The last major change was something to help players locate themselves in the maze. During testing, players told me how it was pretty difficult to navigate, maybe too hard. Talking with the other tutor, he suggested I add some kind of visual cue that persists in a room, even if the decision has been made and the room is empty. I chose to build on our discussion about distraction, and make another UI item that displays a name for each room, which persists throughout the game. This would give players a basic way to know where they are, and make it easier to remember a path.
After making these changes to the game, I set about getting it ready for release.
