Positive Feedback, please

In my video game design class I am working in a group to create, well, a video game. It's a semester long project. Over the past weekend, we prototyped it and in class today, we let our two professors (a dual-teaching threat) and other classmates test it.

Our prototype was a 3D model of the first three levels of our game. We used thick posterboard for the base and thin posterboard for the walls. First we drew the levels out on paper a few times, tweaking the 'flow' of the level and then we assigned appropriate lengths, widths, and heights, to the appropriate walls, pits, switches, and platforms.

We outlined the blueprints of each level with light pencil on the face of each thick piece posterboard. The walls were all four inches high and were between four and sixteen inches long. The posterboard used for the walls was flimsy so we created a support structure for it. We taped toothpicks along the wall three inches apart. We had the pointy part of the toothpick stick out past the bottom of the wall; We were going to treat the wall like a long fence-post, sticking the toothpick bottom into the floor. We didn't want to ruin our thick posterboard by stabbing into it, though, so we placed little globs of sticky tack along the wall and instead stuck the toothpick ends into them.

Props to the female member of my group for figuring out how to do all of this and getting a head start while I was vacationing.

Since the walls were separate pieces, we cut thin pieces of posterboard to acts as joints for each corner. For the switches, we cut 1 inch squares from thin posterboard, drew black borders on both sides of each, and then colored a red circle on one side and a blue on the other. In our game, a switch starts red but turns blue after being hit.

Each level had a title card. One level had platforms and a large pit we colored in with thick, high-inducing, permanent marker. We created a sample HUD and the female member's boyfriend even made our little game character out of toothpicks and scrap poster. The next morning- this morning- we carried it to class.

We got to the classroom early and watched everyone else trickle in. The four other groups assigned to present today set up their prototypes around the room. When class began, everyone not showing a prototype is told to visit each playtesting station around the room.. The two professors walk to our prototype first, saying it caught their eye (how couldn't it?). That was the only nice thing they said.

***

A few minutes later, they've moved on to the next group's prototype, and we're left sitting on the tops of the adjacent desks, heads on our knee, eyes drooping down, gazing at our masterwork that was torn apart as half the class crowded around to watch. I'm doing my best to find something constructive in the notes I made as they played. I realize that they didn't offer anything positive about our game.

It's not like they said it sucked. That it was terrible or boring (which I heard them say to another group). They just didn't point out anything good about it. They didn't even say the prototype looked cool.

Here's a sample of the test. The female professor was the subject and the male professor stood behind her and offered his ideas. On the second level, we told her she was standing in the wrong place and that the she couldn't shoot the switch correctly from that spot. She tried another time from a different angle and we told her it fell short. Then, in sort of a controlled hissy fit- some would call it a condescending joke- she says "All right, I run up here and shoot around for half an hour trying to get the perfect angle to hit the switch"


Not only is that not constructive, it assumes that we are just bad game designers. Like we'll create a game that is intensely frustrating. Hey, maybe we were going to. Maybe we are complete gaming newbs with no sense of the difference between frustrating and challenging a player. Maybe we thought having really hard to get switches would be a just so much fun.

Even if that is the situation, it is bad to treat student game developers, ones in the process of learning; ones that are intensely optimistic about their future with game design (you have to be optimistic to imagine a future in game design, right?); ones that obviously spent a lot of time on a stupid prototype that counts for only a small portion of their grade; ones that enjoy doing this kind of work, creating, thinking, and spending their free time imagining puzzles, levels, challenges, surprises, rewards, and experiences for their beloved players...

Looking back, it was kind of confusing. There was no ceiling and we didn't go so far to create a miniature gun representing the in game gun. We just assumed that they took the best shot available at the certain spot they were standing and told them where it would land and if it hit the switch or not. I understand, now, that was a little confusing and we should fix it for further testing.

This is criticism 101. Say something positive before pointing out something negative. Tell people what they did right and what they did wrong. Offer possible solutions, don't force your own personal answers. Don't make them feel like they've wasted their time or that their ideas have no merit. Don't condescendingly roast their hard work.

Another professor of mine is just the opposite. When I presented a project in her class I always felt like I did a really good job. She always pointed out the weaknesses and potential tripping points of my game ideas in a way that helped me solve them. Sometimes I felt it was just me, that she favored my ideas, until the next person presented and I knew that that person felt the same way I did. She offered us encouragement, not frustration. We didn't want to give up, we didn't feel that our game was hopeless or a waste of time. We realized the good of our ideas and were ready to take the next step.

For example, she would critique game ideas that were too large for the time frame of the class by calling them great, but ambitious ideas. A game that was good enough to be pursued as a capstone with her if they wanted. Then she offered ideas to slim down their game to something that could be done within the class's time frame.

Constructive feedback is important in all fields, but not offering it in games seems plain counter-intuitive. (Most) games are supposed to be fun. If you suck the spirit of fun from the game's designer, how does the spirit of fun enter the game?


In the words of Flight of The Conchords... "Why? W-why? Which-Why? Why exact-ly? Be more constructive with your feedback. Please. Why? Whhyyy?"