Here is the virtual feedback session for our most recent game: ROMHACK.
Did you find the theme of the game developed and interesting?
The consensus was that the theme was very fun and interesting. Many respondents thought that themes of the missions specifically really conveyed the videogames theme, but that they wished there had been a more coherent story/plot throughout the whole game. A few people pointed out that that would have been difficult with the restarts etc.
The zombie mods were commended for their story briefings and general energy levels by multiple people as well. Some players would have liked a little more energy from the human mods during a couple of the missions, but all in all, a positive response.
Mod Response:
I feel like with most games the theme never ends up how it was originally intended, funny ad libs and doing what works best with players and the ever changing game flow creates changes to the theme that you can’t really predict and you lose some coherency.
Theme was weaker on the Human side, yes. Theming to tie missions together was also weak. We spent more time trying to have some ludonarrative resonance instead by strongly linking mission theme to mission mechanics and mission play-flow.
Were you happy with the level of moderator involvement?
Once again, a mostly positive response. People commented on how they were glad that mods were easy to find on mission and that they were in helpful locations, although some responders found that during some missions, the human mods were a tad close the human team, which confused the humans.
Tuesday’s mission was brought up by a couple of people as there was a miscommunication about the mission, but again, the players stress that mod enthusiasm and passion was really appreciated.
Multiple people commented on how well the fresher and new mods did as the game went on and that they should be proud of their achievement.
Mod Response:
Again, missions can, and often have to, change on the fly and we could never be 100% prepared for this, but we only ever made the decisions we felt would benefit the game, even if in retrospect there was something else we could’ve done. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that. When unpredictable things happen which stack against the balance of the game there's very little that mods can do to correct situations without repercussions, all mods try their hardest but we aren’t miracle workers when backed into a corner.
Sorry if any mistakes that were made negatively affected gameplay. Just like the rest of moderating HvZ, no-one on the team is in any way trained or qualified for something like running a live action game so sometimes mistakes happen, we try to limit the effects those mistakes have on gameplay.
How would you rate missions as a whole?
As the pie chart would suggest, the comments were overwhelmingly positive.
Players loved the resetting mission and it was mentioned by multiple responders, along with first mission and ‘spooky nighttime Penrose’.
‘I enjoyed every mission I could make it to, never felt bored and had a fun week as a result’
A few players commented on how they chose their answers as the ‘objectives were well thought out… interesting in their own right but also represented their video games very nicely’
A couple of players mention that although they thought each mission ‘had a solid base, they often had another aspect that made the balance of the mission skewed’ (ie, too easy for humans etc) and that it would have been nice to see some adjustment on missions.
Mod Response:
As a mod team we generally felt very proud of our missions, however things happen that we can’t predict and when it does we just have to try our best to adapt. We had to move around a lot of our missions either due to weather or wipes, and as you can imagine that has a massive domino effect that we then have to try and minimise the impact of, but generally we feel we did as well as we could. You can’t expect perfection for something that is just so unpredictable.
On the subject of mission balance mentioned by one comment, HvZ is an almost inherently unbalanced/unbalance-able game. Harkening to my previous point, no-one on the team receives any training or has any qualifications in live action game balancing. Assisting balance is possible, easy routes for humans can be chosen, zombie stun timers can be changed etc. In the end though, HvZ is a design balancing task with often at least 40 completely rogue and random elements to affect your mission design. Sometimes one team plays well, sometimes one team plays poorly. There is nothing you can do on the fly that can fully account for this, even changing stun timers or changing routes can be useless depending on the die rolls of individual player skill. HvZ player skill has become much less consistent on an individual level in the years I have been designing it and nowadays balancing games is near impossible. If you think you can do better then please apply!
How would you rate final mission?
A majoritively positive, but mixed opinion on final mission. There was some confusion as to which final mission to give feedback on so there is a mix of comments.
Humans and zombies alike enjoyed the first final mission, saying it was fun.
One respondent comments on the mods artifically extending it to let humans ‘lose’, but it is worth pointing out that at the final location, the humans wouldn’t have been able to do parts of task at hand with the number of them alive, so decisions had to be made quickly, which may have seemed like an artificial extension.
On the second final mission, players mention that they liked the idea, but understand why it was so short and that it isn’t really the moderators fault that so many humans died/didn’t turn up pre mission.
‘Cool idea, doable for humans, fun for zombies, quick to pub. Basically all a Final mission needs to be.’
A couple of respondents wished that the mods had added something to the mission to make it longer to accommodate for the small amount of humans.
Mod Response:
For final mission, a mod team will go through the list of Humans during the day and make a frank estimate at how many of those players will attend final mission. In this game, half of that number showed up after pre-mission tags on the way. At 11 or so, there was no need to have an arbitrary lengthening mechanic on a mission that was very completable for the Humans.
Some people mentioned adding objectives for zombies to do before they could attack Humans, but this is equivalent to just starting the mission later for the purpose of actually playing Humans vs Zombies, and would mean that the large amount of zombies that don’t care for taking part in puzzles would have to stand around not playing HvZ to then immediately finish the mission anyway when the objective was done.
What did you think of gameplay overall?
No pie chart for this one, it is one of those open questions. If it had been though, it would have looked very similar to the ‘rate missions as a whole’ chart.
Most people mention in their comments that they had fun and that they were engaged throughout the week
People commented on how they enjoyed how varied the missions were
‘Good old HvZ. It was fun’ ‘It was pretty decent’ ‘It was good’ covers most of the response types
The weather is mentioned as a factor in one responders comment, and they thank the mods as they appreciate that the weather left them in a shitty spot a few times.
One repondent wished that there had been a little more variety to zombie play, suggesting adding a class, but that they had fun overall.
Mod Response:
As a lot of comments mentioned, weather and wipes caused some issues for the overall gameplay, however we feel we adapted well and still did the best we could in the given situation. ‘Nothing special but still good’ is good enough for us when you consider everything.
How would you rate the game as a whole?
All but one of our respondents thought that the game was average or better, which is great.
One player said they picked their answer as they found the game disjointed and a little confusing, saying that the ‘4th wall constantly breaking’ did not help their immersion.
The other comments all follow similar patterns of ‘game was good’, ‘I had a lot of fun’, ‘far from a bad game’.
One responder comment of the fact that ‘a couple of briefings that missed a little info and some days the dayplay didnt happen, but overall great game, resets and all’
How did you find the dayplay?
A mixed response is common when a drastically new day play is trialled, and this game is no different. There were a lot of long responses, and some conflicting responses, so we have done our best to condense them into their main points.
About half of the respondents expressed their dislike for the random human zombification mechanic as they felt that dayplay being obligatory is not something they personally enjoy as it could punish those with busier timetables and didn’t feel fun to them. They feel that dayplay should be something to do on the side that provides a bonus for going the extra mile.
Some people wished that the zombies gained something more for completing their day play as if the humans did theirs, they got nothing as a reward, especially as the zombies were not informed if they had ‘lost’ until completing their dayplay.
Some players commented on how they enjoyed that the reward for zombie dayplay sabotaged the human team but wished for something more as the reward, such as reducing stun timers, so that they got something for doing the dayplay if the humans did theirs.
Someone commented on how they thought the dayplay was a good length and appreciated the definitive end point, so they could do it around uni work.
‘The dayplay was a very fun and interesting idea … were there a less unfair lose condition, would've voted very good’
Then on the flip side, a couple of players said they liked the zombification mechanic and that ‘The randomness of zombification allowed the zombies to get humans they normally couldn't until final mission’
‘The design in particular was flawed… but I think that the zombie grid thing was genuinely fun, and I really liked it. Would love to see that reappear.’
Mod Response:
Long answer inbound: From the beginning I (Tana) came into planning the game knowing that I wanted a variation of the random zombification dayplay. I knew from the start that this was something that may not be received well and that it would be seen as being ‘negative’, however to me it was something new that felt worth exploring and so we ran with it and despite a lot of the criticism I’m happy we tried it and learned from it and I think it was still a decent dayplay in a mechanical sense, despite its flawed reward system.
The zombie dayplay was more difficult to design as just ‘add a class’ or ‘reduce stun timers’ really is not that simple as these things completely change the balancing of a mission and having an essential dice throw on whether they’d be included or not each day just wasn’t really an option for a lot of missions in this game, and so the less player-fulfilling option was put in place. On a slightly unrelated note - as a mod team we found it incredible to, on some days, watch just one or two humans go out and complete or nearly complete all of the dayplay on their own, not only showing that this was completely possible, but also that you could sense the dedication of these players and it was very lovely to see. Overall, I’m happy this dayplay was tried and we can now all rest easy knowing it will never be tried again c;
Part 1: Dayplay is a fun activity for the active minority to take part in that generally isn’t even worth designing in a weeklong game as it consistently receives such a small level of player interaction, while representing one of the more difficult design tasks. Mods should never attempt to design a day play for the sole purpose of getting more people to play it.
Part 2: Dayplay is always designed for the active minority. Some people want it to effect missions, some people want it to not. It usually comes down to preference. Just like every other dayplay this one was designed for the people that would take part. From a psychological standpoint, this dayplay was purely negative for the Humans, but from an early point this dayplay was selected as the one we would have and it was difficult to frame it in a less negative way. However, it was always balanced around being fairly easily completable by not many people, both from the Human side and the Zombie side. This was to alleviate, from a “robotic” perspective of how much it actually punishes people who don’t have time to do the dayplay. There are very few people left that are actually attempting to come up with completely new ways to frame HvZ and if you are a person that ever disagrees with a design decision then that is awesome and you should try to come up with something better.
Any other comments or suggestions about the game/things you love/things to improve/fave moments?
Open question so lots of varied answers that cover a wide range of topics!
A request for GIAG missions to try to ‘hook new people’ so they get the full HvZ experience.
Having a thing to show people how discord works
‘SNEK BOX WAS AMAZING AND SHOULD BE IN EVERY GAME’
‘splitting puzzle mission was a great idea’
‘considering the lack of experience, it was nicely done. Really happy of the two first time mods who did a superb job this game, but communication could be improved’
‘I’m really impressed by all the mods… On top of that, I think Tana did a great job as Head Mod, and I hope all of the Mods go on to Mod more in the future’
‘you should all be proud’
‘A comment for the players: a game reset is a highlight of a game. Players who didn't get to human as much as they want get to try it again and zombies get a bunch of high intensity fast paced missions to go wild in.’
WARIO
Heather having only one working eye but getting to final mission
Alex not being able to get tagged despite playing recklessly
A&E GBJ crew 4 lyfe
The Monday night human sprint of death defiance
Three wipe game
Mod Comment:
Modding is a learning experience and everyone is constantly improving and trying to do better. On a personal note, Jason and Juliet both did an incredible job as first-time/year mods, bringing so many ideas to game planning and doing an absolutely fantastic job on missions too. Aston, Dan and Jake were also all more than I could’ve hoped for and I’m beyond proud of them and the game that we gave up so much of our time to make for you all, and we just hope you all enjoyed it!
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