Searchlight is a game made on the Brackeys Game Jam 1 (25 Aug-01 Sept 2018), an event created by the Brackeys Discord community. The development phase lasted for a week and the peer-evaluation phase lasted for three weeks. The theme is Light.

Searchlight takes place on a WWII setting and the player’s goal is to point the light from the searchlight to each aircraft that appears on the sky, preventing them from dropping bombs on the player’s base. The game is over when the base gets hit three times. The game was entirely made by my talented husband and I was the User Experience (UX) and Game User Research (GUR) Consultant throughout.

The game was developed with Unity game engine and supports web, Windows and Mac, so the player can choose to play it on the browser, or download it and play on the computer.

With the team being so small (one developer and myself) and the work being so fast paced due to the short deadline, we had to enable an effective communication in order for valuable feedback to be delivered. The GUR deliverables to the developer were a combination between workshop (conduction of my own expert analysis to review issues and discuss potential solutions) and debrief (verbal presentation and discussion).

Where the magic happens: GUR

All of the improvements regarding UX and Player Experience were a product of my expertise and literature-based (http://www.gurbook.com/). Among many tasks, I will emphasize the ones that had a decisive factor on the experience of the game:

Competitor evaluation of games (by similar name and/or similar conceptual mechanics)

As a design choice to decrease the visual disturbance on the screen real estate, life bars were eliminated: in order to have a visual representation of the damage on the aircrafts we introduced smoke, demonstrating that the aircraft was hit; also, the design of the home base on the left part of the screen being visibly destroyed when hit by enemy aircrafts allows for visual information on the player’s “life bar” (three hits equals end of game)

According to eye tracking studies that defend the gaze and motion of the eye is made from left to right, the characters were placed on the left and the enemies on the right

The (neural) reward system — comprising incentive salience, associative learning (primarily positive reinforcement and classical conditioning), and positive emotions — were the basis to the point system achieved to create motivation for the player (the more points, the higher the score, meaning each time the player plays the game he/she has the potential to beat the record, adding to the fact that this is an infinite game and the outcome is always loss)

The notion of object permanence — which consists in the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be perceived (seen, heard, touched, smelled or sensed in any way) and it emerges during human development — is the basis of the bullets physics implemented in the design. The purpose was to make a bullet proceed its trajectory and hit other objects even if it doesn’t hit an aircraft and there’s another one in the same trajectory

“Perception is not determined simply by stimulus patterns; rather it is dynamic searching for the best interpretation of the available data … perception involves going beyond the immediately given evidence of the senses” (Gregory, 1966). With that said, it’s very easy to focus on visual perception alone, but there are other senses that can hint the player on what’s happening. That’s how we decided to implement the sound of the aircrafts when they first appear on screen, even though there’s a good chance the player didn’t see them yet

Notwithstanding, based on the visual perception theory, we decided to show the aircrafts only when they are under the light (every aircraft outside of the light doesn’t appear, all the user sees is the the scenario behind the action). Also, when any aircraft or the home base explode, the screen shakes, deepening the player experience

Visual perception was also a consideration on the explosions of the aircrafts on the ground when they are destroyed, which gives the player a visualization of the enemies being closer or further away

The minimalist feel and lightness (no pun intended) was a design choice (made by both)

Activation of the option of collecting some analytics from Unity game engine and itch.io website for further assessment of the game’s performance

Future work

Due to the short deadline, we focused on delivering a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and lots of decisions had to be made, meaning some features were chosen over others. For this reason, we have plans to continue updating the game by implementing the following (but not only) modifications:

According to the users the “Quit” button on the web version doesn’t work, so we decided to remove it from the web version and maintain it on the Windows and MacOS downloadables

The controls are currently done entirely through the keyboard and the speed of the light’s movement is slower than normal. This is contradicting Fitt’s Law prediction of time required to rapidly move to a target area being a function of the ratio between the distance to the target and the width of the target. We are going to introduce the input from the mouse to allow a natural movement (which is currently impeded by the (purposely) low speed or slow response of the light)

The input from the mouse and the input from the keyboard mentioned above will be assessed through A/B Testing after implementation for further studies of the users’ preferences

Some users expressed positive or negative feedback about the fading effect of the edges of the light, connected to the range of view of the aircrafts arriving. We will implement, and assess through A/B Testing, two versions of the light, one with and another one without faded effect, for further studies of the users’ preferences

Some players provided critical feedback about the Zeppelin’s impact on the game — is appears that all the aircrafts that fly too close to the Zeppelin are not seen or hit (the target is on the Zeppelin instead). So, we are going to change the trajectory of the aircrafts to avoid their intersections and we will implement a contour on each object to make them more noticeable and distinguishable

Some users expressed confusion when their home base gets hit by enemy aircrafts, mainly because of the fact that they don’t see the aircrafts when the light isn’t focusing on them. We will try to study and understand a way to make the player aware of when an aircraft escapes, probably with a distinct firing sound and a light spark at the location of the aircraft

To allow for longer and more challenging gameplay, we will add new difficulty levels with more powerful and skilled aircrafts (possibly with Artificial Intelligence)

To encourage the Socializer (from the simple measure designed by Richard Bartle, the Bartle Test of Psychology) we are going to implement the split screen option to allow for two players to play against each other. We will also implement a system for high score comparison with other players in social media that complements the split screen feature described above

Activation of more analysis metrics for the collection of information provided by the website and Unity game engine

Wrapping up

The UX consultancy occurred during the one-week development phase, so further player experience and usability testing is the next logical step to continue improving the game in its future iterations (continuous improvement). The most valuable feedback so far has been the comments from players, who can develop their likes/dislikes about the game in a written form.

Some of the improvements that I suggested were not implemented, which actually happens a lot in a work environment. Working with my husband was the real struggle of not butthurting the other one without getting butthurt ourselves! With that said, this game has really fortified our family bond and deepened the respect we already had for each other’s work.

Congratulations on your first of many (entirely) self-made game, my love @_andreferreira_!

A special and HUGE thank you to the authors of the Games User Research book (http://www.gurbook.com/)! You have no idea how helpful you were and continue to be!

Thank you for reading!

Stay tuned for “The GUR behind Searchlight — Part 2” comprehending the dissection of this article’s future work section.

Feel free to leave feedback on the comment section.