Party Video Games: Design for New Users
Miranda Capra / Consumer Products / Usability / User Experience / Web & SoftwareGames are an interesting design challenge because if they’re too easy they’re no fun, and if they’re too hard they’re no fun, and “easy” and “hard” may be different for different people. Party games, or video games that you’d break out with a group of friends, are a special challenge because they need to be fun for the group, which may contain people with mixed skill levels or experience. Wii Sports is a great video game because the direct interaction style is fun. Want to swing the tennis racket? Just swing the controller! But it quickly became a party game, even for people that didn’t play video games. Why? Because it was intuitive, easy to learn. No need to memorize complex combinations of button presses used in many video games. Instead, people could pick up a controller and start playing immediately.
The Super Mario Party series of games has been a popular Nintendo party game for years, and it’s now on its 8th version. The game is oriented around dozens of mini-games, short games that last only a few minutes. Losing a single game isn’t a big deal because you play so many, and different people will be good at different mini games. You can also play a game in “practice” mode as many times as you like before starting the formal competition, which is important because in a 2-minute game you don’t have time to learn the controls. But the way the instructions are presented is terrible, so I found myself skipping the training and relying on my nieces and nephews to explain the rules. When I did really badly we’d go back to read the instructions and discover they’d been playing it wrong for weeks. Here’s why I disliked the instructions:
- Instructions are in a separate screen that you have to choose to read. No six-year-old (and few adults) will stop to read instructions before playing.
- There is a time gap between reading and using a move, so you are likely to forget it.
- All the moves are presented together, which makes them harder to learn than when you only learn one at a time.
- As an experienced user, watching someone read instructions is supremely boring. I felt bad making the kids sit and watch while I read the instructions.
Wii Sports Resort has dozens of sports games, ranging from archery to skydiving to frisbee golf to swordplay, and each with several play variations (individual, team competitions, etc.). Like Mario Party, it’s a great party game because it has a variety of mini games to choose from. But it’s better because even though each game requires a different use of the controller, Nintendo has done an outstanding job of of integrating training into the game to helping newbies start playing.
Here’s what Wii Sports Resort did better than Mario Party 8:
- Practice mode allows you to learn the moves before starting a timed/scored/competitive game.
- Instructions are interspersed into the practice, with text overlaid on top of the screen as you try the move. It’s better for you because you can read the instructions while trying them out. It’s also better for everyone else because watching someone play a practice mode more entertaining than watching them read, and at least you can laugh when they swing their racket five times and still miss the ball.
- You are presented with one move at a time, and have time to practice before learning the next.
- Illustrations provide a basic level of instructions for those that can’t read, like young children.
- You use your own Mii (personalized avatar), and it remembers which Miis have been trained.
- Practice is always available if you want to repeat it.
- Games are used for sports that require extended training, such learning to steer your canoe by collecting ducklings and returning them to their mother, or learning how to aim your frisbee by popping balloons.
Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort are great games because swinging the controller is like swinging a bat or a racket or a golf club, which makes it lots of fun. But what interests me as a product designer is that Nintendo has done such a good job of desiging the games for ease of learning. This is a key element for party games, to make sure that someone other than the game owner has fun. If you are designing instructional media, I highly recommend playing these games to see some examples of good instructional design. A game should be challenging because it’s a good game, not because it’s hard to learn the controls.
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