Playtest Reports

playtest2

Team 5 - Wheel-A-Way! playtesting with Team 7 on 04/12/26 at VisLab

Briefly describe the current state of your product / website.

The website is looking a lot better than it was last week, from last week we changed the entire project’s design and theme. Currently, we have a lot more direction for the users and another interaction that we added. The movement remains the same, but we are hoping to get the realistic movement working perfectly by gold. We still have some issues with pawn overlap and collisions with items in the world and user experience refinement.

Describe what you hope to see during this playtest.

We want to see if the testers are able to detect what is supposed to be done with the newly added storyline and in-game hints and if they have any issues with the movement or collision. We hope that they are able to understand how to get specific interactions done and have a good idea of what the project is supposed to do.

After they playtest our product…

Describe how the playtest proceeded. What did the users do?

Outside the house, we didn’t have any This time user went straight up to the shoe cabinet with the key in it, triggering the hint for that. This threw us off since we were expecting a specific experience flow for the game and had never stopped to think that the user may start experimenting right as the game loads and not be patient for instructions. When the user saw the key they also stood up to get it instead of following the text saying “the key is too high, look for something to get it down”. Showed us that we cannot trust the user. We have to implement a mechanism to pause the game if they leave the chair.xt level finding the key.

Was the product / website's purpose intuitive? Did users appear confused at any point?

The users weren’t confused this time around. Outside the house we had no in-game hints but the user went right up to the house’s starcase and said “looks like I have to build a ramp” and picked it up and put it over the stairs, as intended. Overall the game seems intuitive enough, but one thing they did mention is that it would be good to get users familiar with the movement before starting the game, a “tutorial level” of sorts.

What kind of things did the users say while interacting?

One unexpected thing that happened was the user couldn’t pick up things from the ground. The user testing our product was taller than us. So I think testing the game only on us and while sitting down backfired a little. We need to pay more attention to the height calculation of players. They also mentioned that turning was way too slow and needed to have some momentum in it, which is already in our todo list.

In its current state, in what ways (big or small) is the product / website succeeding?

The product is pretty intuitive, according to our testers. They think that the movement at its current state is already pretty good, People like the idea, They got the goal of the product even before seeing the website.

In its current state, in what ways (big or small) is the product / website falling short?

We still have only one level’s interactions done. We need to focus on getting the other two levels populated before gold. The wheelchair still doesn’t move as we would like it to, but we’re working on it. The experience we do have so far has some rough edges that we also hope to iron out in gold.

In what areas will you invest your time this week?

Looking ahead, we would like to really focus on getting the realistic wheelchair movement done. Our second priority is to finish the overall experience and the full story line with all three rooms.

After we playtest their product…

Describe the other team's product / website.

The other team’s product was meant to be fitness focused and allow for people to move around a lot and get activation of their muscles. Specifically targeted at those who are in the hospital and have muscle degradation. They have a few levels where you start out and then you click an iPad or some sort of device that opens a door and then you have to dodge things using your body or else you will lose health. Then the next level is for you to use your lightsaber to deflect attacks back at turrets.

Do you think this product / website addresses the five criteria for P3 success?

I really like this idea and think it’s super cool, especially because I really like fitness. They could definitely use some player guidance features like text in the game which would really allow the user to understand what to do. Currently, it’s kind of hard to understand what the point of the game is and where to go with it. However, I think the product has a lot of potential. I think there is a good amount of technical sophistication, but there are definitely a few bugs which are to be expected with any project! I think that this idea is quite novel if they are able to get multiple ways of moving around integrated. There are other products that may be similar like BeatSaber, but they do not incorporate multiple methods of movement, so this would really shine if they are able to move beyond that. The product also definitely creates a social impact because you can use this in hospitals or other places where physical therapy may be required. This could help create a fun environment to work towards your physical therapy. Without VR this app wouldn’t work, so I think it uses VR to it’s full potential, however I think they need to think about how to limit your movement in the real world to be within a confined space so you don’t end up injuring yourself by moving around too far. There is a clear ability to market this product to hospitals, gyms, or physical therapy studios to help those who have issues with their muscles being degraded to then start getting movement in and progress to harder tasks like running, jogging, and long distance walking.