Metroid Prime
November 17, 2002
Add Trivia
Viewing Single Trivia

1
In the last few months of the game's development, the team invited friends of family to do "white paper" playtests of the game where they would play without help and the developers would monitor their progress. According to programmer Zoid Kirsch, they learned a lot from these observations:

"We'd often see testers get stuck in rooms that had [Morph Ball] tunnel exits--they won't notice them. This resulted in putting big spotlights over those entrances to make them stand out as a path. Our testers often couldn't figure out how to get up to the bridge leading to the Arboretum. After they acquired the [Morph Ball] and returned to the Main Plaza in the Chozo Ruins they didn't notice the steps in the back to cross the bridge. Originally both back steps were nearly the same color. We changed them to different textures and improved lighting. Our next set of testers noticed it immediately."

These tests with new players helped improve the game greatly, because they provided clear feedback in how to communicate the game world to the player, resulting in a lot of simple design changes that were incorporated throughout the game.

Comments (0)


You must be logged in to post comments.

Related Games