Chants of Sennaar - The notebook
As a part of a school project, I teamed up with another Game Designer to assess the usability and enjoyability of the notebook in Chants of Sennaar.
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We carried out these tests on 8 different people, as a result of which we identified a key issues within the design of the notebook:
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Lack of Flexibility
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Ability to Brute-force the answers
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Player difficulty in remembering the context of the Glyphs
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Once these issues were identified, I set out to design possible solutions within the notebook to help players have a more accessible tool.
Issue 1: Remembering Glyphs
Solution: In-game Notebook Pop-up
One of solutions I designed to help the player remember glyphs within the context of the notebook was to have an in-game pop-up window thanks to which the player can navigate through the notebook while solving the game's puzzles.
Solution: Access to Glyph History
This would allow players to view images of where they saw the symbols in the context of the gameplay
Issue 2: Lack of Flexibility
Solution: Whiteboard Page
Many players expressed frustration at the rigidity of the notebook. Giving the players a "Whiteboard" page in which they could draw freely as well as drag-and-drop Glyphs onto the page would give them more freedom in the notebook.
Solution: Ability to Favorite and Sort Through Glyphs
Another solution would be to give players the ability to favorite certain glyphs and sort through them based on certain categories such as: favorites, order found, or unsolved.
Issue 3: Ability to Brute-Force
In Chants of Sennaar, the glyph meanings are confirmed in groups of 3, by pairing them the correct associated image. This allows players to brute-force the solutions by randomly pairing symbols with the remaining image once they've found 2. Some players expressed frustration at this temptation.
Solution: Correctly Form Sentences with Glyphs
Re-using the drag-and-drop ability, players would be able to create sentences themselves using glyphs, and translating from English correctly would confirm these glyphs.
Solution: Correctly Translate Glyph Sentences to English
Similarly, correctly identifying sentence meanings by typing them directly into the notebook could be an alternative way to confirm Glyph meanings and progress in the game.
Software Used
