Galaxy Invaders: Alien Shooter
UX Research Project
Usability / Playability Report
Table of Contents
Click on section title or scroll down through project
Issue Severity Scale (User Experience)
Game information
-
Project summary
Game title
Genre
Playing device/Platform
Player mode
Features evaluated
Methodology
Galaxy Invaders: Alien Shooter
Shooter
Mobile
Single-player
- Campaign mode
- Special items
- World environment
- Revival system
Quantitative
-
Playtest
-
Content Analysis
-
Survey
-
Game info card
Game concept
Galaxy Invaders: Alien Shooter is a fixed shooter / shoot ‘em up mobile game where players have to destroy multiple waves of enemies with a spaceship.
Game mechanics
-
Players can maneuver the spaceship by dragging their finger across the screen.
-
Some waves are timed.
-
In timed waves, the amount of enemy attacks increases after 30 seconds.
-
In Campaign mode, players can earn up to three stars per level in order to get more coins and multiple rewards.
-
Stars are earned by doing the following:
- Pass the level
- Defeat each timed wave in less than 22 seconds
- Kill one (or two) Hoarders
-
Players get only one life and they can revive the spaceship by watching ads in the game app or using diamonds.
-
All the non-starter playable characters / spaceships should be unlocked.
-
Players can increase fixed lasers from two shots up to ten shots by getting some of the special items.
Player mode
Gameplay mode
- Campaign
-
Players complete chapters consisting of 16 levels.
-
Each level contains 6 to 10 waves of enemies and players should defeat a boss in some of them.
- Endless
-
Players complete as many waves as they can through a continuous cycle.
-
Difficulty increases as players advance to higher waves.
- PVP
-
Two players compete against one another in a series of waves.
-
The player that completes all the waves first wins the match.
-
Players can see a progress indicator from the their opponent on their screens.
- Difficulty
-
Normal, Hard
Special items
When enemies are destroyed, they may drop special items that can be picked by players to activate battle features. See the special items listed below:
-
atk-up
Increases the amount of fixed laser shots.
-
magnet
Attracts dropped items to spaceship.
-
overload
Temporarily increases fixed lasers to ten shots.
-
shield
Protects spaceship from enemy attacks.
-
missiles
Several missiles are shot and targeted towards enemies.
-
wingman
A smaller spaceship is temporarily released to assist players. Each wingman has a distinctive shot pattern and special features.
Playable Characters / Spaceships
Single-player
Menu screen
Campaign wave
Boss battle
PVP
- Rarity
-
Valiant (Starter)
-
Spitfire (Rare)
-
Redtail (Rare)
-
Fizard (Rare)
-
Cryo (Epic)
-
Corvus (Epic)
-
Tempest (Epic)
-
Proximo (Epic)
- Legendary
-
Frigus
-
Ifrit
-
Phoenix
-
Manta
- Event
-
Helix (Epic)
-
Helios (Epic)
-
Hyperion (Legendary)
Valiant
Proximo
Figus
Manta
Helix
Hyperion
Participant information
-
Sample of Participants
Sample size
Age / User Groups
Inclusion criteria
8 participants
-
18-21 (User Group 1) – 3 Participants
-
22-25 (User Group 2) – 3 Participants
-
26-29 (User Group 3) – 2 Participants
-
30+ (User Group 4) – N/A
-
Relative experience playing shooter games
-
Minimum age to participate: 18 years old
-
Ability to participate in playtest remotely
-
Ability to screen-share play sessions with researcher
-
Ability to participate in follow-up surveys after each play session
-
Participant summary
Participant Gender Age Relevant games played
Participant 1 Male 18-21 Space Invaders, Contra Anniversary Collection
Participant 2 Female 18-21 Enter the Gungeon, Jamestown
Participant 3 Male 22-25 Beat Hazard 2, Nex Machina
Participant 4 Female 18-21 Mushihimesama, Deathsmiles
Participant 5 Female 26-29 Dariusburst Chronicle Saviours, Ikaruga
Participant 6 Male 22-25 Blue Revolver, Drifting Lands
Participant 7 Female 26-29 DonDonPachi Resurrection, Geometry Wars 3
Participant 8 Male 22-25 Eschatos, Graceful Explosion Machine
Issue Severity Scale (User Experience)
.png)
Research design
-
Research summary
Session type
Playtest
Data Collection
Survey data
Content data
Number of Sessions
5 sessions of 30 minutes
Project duration
7 days total
Research procedures (5 days)
Analysis and Report (2 days)
Main target audience
Open to all User Groups listed
Location
Remote play
Phone mirroring /
Zoom screen-share
Methodology
Quantitative
-
Content Analysis
-
Survey
Responsibilities
Solo
Researcher performed all tasks in this project
-
Playtest information
-
Participants played in Campaign mode thirty minutes at a time until they completed Chapters 1 and 2 across five sessions.
-
They were encouraged to play at their own pace.
-
A restriction mandating participants not to use pay-to-win features was put in please to allow for an organic game experience with default features.
-
They filled out a survey after completing each play session.
-
Participants that finished the two chapters in 4 sessions were skipped pass Day 4 survey to Day 5 survey.
-
Methodology rationale
-
A quantitative approach was deemed appropriate for this assessment.
-
The survey and content analysis were administered to gain initial insights and graph numerical indicators of user experience.
-
The survey allowed for a better representation of overall sentiments, special item rankings, feature sorting, and identification of critical usability issues.
-
The content analysis was performed to track the frequency of special items (every time a special item was dropped in a wave), and the number of times a recurrent issue was addressed by participants.
Findings summary
.png)
Insights and recommendations
This section contains an in-depth analysis and further discussion on each of the findings.
Recommendations were provided to address the medium, high, and critical issues identified
per the Issue Severity Scale (User Experience) on this assessment.
-
Overall sentiments: Participants enjoyed their overall experience
Positive finding
-
Participants finished the first two chapters in 4-5 sessions. They rated their overall experience across all days (on average) a 4 or above.
-
The only exception was Day 4 possibly because only 3 out of the 8 participants completed the survey for that day.
-
The Campaign mode and special items had the highest ratings across all the features evaluated.
.jpg)
-
Special items were positively rated
Positive finding
-
The rating average for special items was 7.5 out of 10, which is deemed highly favorable.
-
The special items with highest participant ratings were atk-up and overload, while the ones with lowest participant ratings were magnet and wingman.
.png)
-
The special items with the highest frequency rate were missiles and
atk-up, while the ones with the lowest frequency rate were shield and wingman.
.png)
-
Participants liked certain elements from the World environment
Finding
-
The world environment of the game was assessed by evaluating the following elements:
Visuals Sound
Background design Music
Coloring Sound effects
-
Participants were asked to sort these four elements by order of preference.
-
On average, the elements were rated from highest (4) to lowest (1) in the following order:
Music > Coloring > Sound effects > Background design
.png)
-
The Revival system was rated poorly
Critical issue
-
6 participants (75%) rated the Revival system poorly while the other 2 participants (25%) were neutral.
-
5 participants (62.5%) complained about the limited options to revive the spaceship.
-
4 participants (50%) stated that starting off waves with only one life made higher waves extremely challenging at times.
.png)
Recommendations
It is understandable that assigning one life to users at the beginning of each wave might be perceived as a fair measure, considering that the maneuvering controls for the game are relatively simple. However, in order to improve user experiences in this context, developers could consider doing the following:
-
Assign two lives at the beginning of each wave
This measure might help users navigate higher waves of enemies as difficulty levels in those
increase significantly.
-
Enable alternative methods for spaceship revival
With this measure in place, players would have more ways to revive the spaceship other than watching in-game ads and paying with diamonds.
-
Enable more methods for users to get diamonds
Diamonds can be purchased with coins (in-game currency) and/or through pay-to-win features (which were restricted on this playtest). Perhaps developers could create an alternative reward system for users to obtain diamonds by completing bonus tasks and taking on featured wave challenges.