Where We Left Off

Last week I dove back into The Arcadia Report with a fresh perspective after some time off and published the first dev log, reflecting on a project at a turning point. The conclusion? This location-hopping mystery game had many of the right parts but maybe not put together in the right order. So continuing on with the plan to design in the open, kicked off in the last post, here’s how I went about reimagining and streamlining a murder mystery experience (without committing any actual murders).

Week 2 Review

My aim for this week sounded straightforward enough: simplify the core experience and identify MVP ready design. Except that ‘core experience’ was more or less the entire game I had been working on for the last 3+ months. And I wanted to overhaul it in less than 7 days.

I realise I may be overestimating how much can be crammed into a week but sure, that’s what makes it interesting. As mentioned last week, I’m coopting the 5 day design sprint process to help me focus (and ideally achieve) one key aim each week. In this case, the goal was purposely lofty for such a compressed timeframe to force me to get creative and not rely on what is already there. That way at the very worst, all I’ve lost is a week and gained a knowledge along the way. So on with the sprint!

How Many Ways Could This Go Wrong?

Spoiler: probably a lot.

Kicked off the sprint with a bit of musing on long term goals and potential pitfalls/ways everything could go horribly, horribly wrong along the way (spoiler: there’s always more than you think. But it’s actually great to get them out there). These formed the basis for some of the key questions this sprint would focus on:

• What is the simplest way to showcase the mystery content so people can test the mysteries themselves?
• How might we streamline the experience so people can pick up and play and not be scared off by an appearance of complexity?
• What elements are the most enjoyable? How can we polish and focus on those?
• How might we make travelling to locations and engaging and rewarding hunt?

Mapping it Out

Rather than going back to the old flows and customer journey maps I had outlined, for the purpose of this redesign experiment I zoomed in on the onboarding/first encounter with Arcadia and noted down a high level overview of what that might involve (along with a lot of notes to myself and probably jumping towards potential solution ideas too quickly but at this point I was getting carried away).

1. Gamer hears about it on Itch.io or from a friend on twitter, decides to test it out.
2. Downloads the first case for free (how might this be streamlined? Can jump to app store be avoided? Browser trial?)
3. Granted automatic access (this is fuzzy. Do you have to have an account/access key?)
4. Onboarding boots up (Could the initial boot up be location triggered?)
5. Introduced to Arcadia
6. Boot up Arcadia by restarting the corrupted database (learning the key mechanics as they go).
7. Introduce locations. (<em class="kk" <ui="" becomes="" less="" glitchy="" as="" they="" restart<="" em="">?).</em>
8. Arcadia restarted! Success message and option to subscribe or keep playing.
9. Boot up first case (automatically?)
10. Can begin to read files.
11. Purchase first case to submit evidence.

Sprint Focus

Armed with the a load of questions and many potential problems, I narrowed down to what I would focus on this week for the purpose of this redesign. To tackle (and hopefully answer) some of the questions/ways this could go wrong, I decided to hone in on one audience — gamers — and simplifying the core experience. The goal being simplification and streamlining the experience, I decided to focus on your first introduction to the world of Arcadia so I could see how far I could go in terms of stripping back to the essentials.

• Audience: Indie Gamer
• Moment: Introduction to Arcadia (steps 3–8)
• Question: How might we recenter the experience around locations from the start and make them as simple — and engaging — as possible?

What if I Forgot Everything So Far?

Now to forget everything. Well, not quite.

This isn’t so about throwing out everything from before, but looking at it in a new light now that I had a much better grasp on the composite ideas. I went back to my original research, referencing ‘analysis’ (aka justifying spending hours playing games by calling it research) I had completed before Christmas on everything from the amazing Her Story to the classic Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective and consolidated the highlights.

Head now abuzz with problems to solve and mystery goodness, it was time for storyboarding.

Maybe a bit too abuzz because even my drawing skills certainly took a nose dive the further along the storyboard went. But hey, what counts is just communicating the concepts for now and putting things in perspective of how people might actually play the game. That’s when I could really start to let loose and go back to basics. From pretending I was starting from scratch and sketching as 8 (+/-) ideas in 8 minutes to twisting the existing experience on its head to find the epicentre.

By the end, the introduction to The Arcadia Report went from something like this:

To this:

It packs the same content but streamlined and simplified, refocused around the location scanner and getting you into straight into the mystery (rather than the interface). There are still areas missing and the prototype is broad brushstrokes for now. However, in a single week this covered the essential steps and question of introducing the core of the experience — following clues to real locations to unlock evidence — and flipped The Arcadia Report on its head. For the better, if you ask me, but next to find out what players think.

Highs & Lows

Win

• As mentioned last week, I adapted the Google Design Sprint 5 day process to help me focus (and ideally achieve) one key aim each week. It proved perfect for this kind of redesign experiment, enabling a really tight feedback loop which helps me quickly test a new direction.
• Stripping back to the essentials until there is nothing left to remove. This not only helped the UX, but will making getting to a MVP easier as well.

Loss

• Last week I set up a more online channels for The Arcadia Report as part of my goal to design in the open. This week I… didn’t really use them as I would like. Sharing can be time intensive and I need to rethink how I can focus my efforts to the areas that have the most impact and fit them in naturally as part of a sprint.
• I got to talk over the changes and get feedback from several designers but testing the new direction with users will have to wait until next week. However that does give more time to join the Citizens Club, if you’re interested in getting exclusive access and helping shape the mystery.

Lessons Learnt

• Work is Not Wasted: Okay, so I pivoted the design to a new version. But none of it would exist without the previous iterations, research, and feedback that got me here.
• Find the Essence: Keep asking what can be removed without breaking the game/product/whatever until you’re left with the essence. You’d be surprised what you can get rid of it. The experience will probably be better off for it and you can always add stuff back later if it necessary.
• Remember the Tester’s Perspective: One of my plans for testing was to go back to people who had playtested previous iterations of The Arcadia Report so I could see how the new design performed in comparison. However, talking over the project and plans with some awesome designers, I was reminded to try for a 50/50 split so I could see how previous players and people new to the game respond as new players will have a different perspective and catch different issues. So thanks to Sam, Inga, and Conor for donuts and a super feedback session!
• Work Hard, Play Harder: Not project related but got back to football and participated in physical exercise for the first time since before Christmas. Felt so much better (after getting over the initial feelings of death, that is) and it actually helped my work as well. A good reminder to prioritise your health.

Next Week

The moment of truth. The Arcadia Report has a fresh UX overhaul but there are still parts to be worked out for this update. Along the way, it’ll mean diving back into the mystery and fleshing out the clues with a fresh perspective. But before that, I want to get the new designs in front of players and get their response and thoughts to see if The Arcadia Report is heading in the right direction or not. Only one way to find out.

Until next time, stay safe.