Asteria Rising: Update 11

Usability testing is important for a game like Asteria Rising. There are numerous interconnecting parts at play. Testing on the current Alpha [v0.17] began a few weeks ago. There has been a play test of combat and a test of character creation.

The character creation was tested by posting both a survey and the character creation portions of my the game. I will be posting those here just to show everyone a big behind the scenes look. Honestly, I have not gotten much feedback. The big reason is most likely the size of the document; because definitions for Skills and Combat Prowess needed to be included, the document is 71 pages and very involved.

Those who did test character creation found the process easier than other table-top role-playing-games. Luckily, one only needs 3-5 users to test before data variations on usability decrease exponentially. Well, I guess it would technically be logarithmically. I do not have that textbook on hand to cite this information; however, just know for general usability testing one only needs a handful of people form the target demographic. Large bodies of testers is only useful when compiling data for scientific research.

Tester found the way I laid out tasks for character creation rather helpful; my main reason for the prototype test did well. Testers enjoyed how the Character Traits aspect functioned, so it was good of me reverse engineer that from Greg Stafford's King Arthur Pendragon game. The change in the character sheet layout was appreciated as well, now role-play and combat elements are more evenly consolidated.

The most notable suggestions I received where: make the Skills portion of character creation like the Character Traits one; expand the Combat Prowess to have more specific items; make the rolls for character creation less swingy.

Moving on to Alpha v0.18 will result in me changing the class system greatly, yet the layout of the character sheets and most of character creation will be unchanged. The alterations to player classes will be to what actions they perform and how they level.

Feel free to test character creation and take the 5 question survey. I probably should have posted it here, but I forgot. . . My negligence aside, even with the changes I'm making any commentary is still appreciated.

Enjoy your day.

(Files have been removed)