I’m writing to announce my completed Thesis entitled, “The Use of Real-Time Mechanics to Increase Emotional Engagement and Immediacy in Interactive Fiction.” If you’re interested, you can check it out at:
Do you have the data on how many players finished (won or lose) the prototypes?
There’s a real metric that hints at the level of engagement: play time. Regardless of what they say on the survey, if a person played one game much longer than the other, a similar one, then she wanted to play that game more, especially if there is no ending state.
While the literal time-of-play wasn’t captured, most players (over 60) offered comments relating multiple playthroughs… Prototype 1 garnered attempts because folks wanted to master the mechanics (which is good, because it was a prototype built purely to test the mechanics); Prototype 2 gained the most positive responses around multiple tries, but mostly because it took a few attempts to figure out and beat (most players really liked the concept as well).
I’d love for you to play them and offer your own thoughts here!