By: David Hendershot, James Stehle, Kyle Powell, Jonathon Davis

Nielsen's 10 Heuristics

Game Summary Snow Way in Hell is a side scroll PC based game where you play a sentient snowball that has humanoid likeness. Stuck in a dungeon, you must fight your way out through hordes of bats, zombies, lava monsters, and even dragons! Watch out though, for you are made of snow and have a high possibility of melting. Armed with snowballs you must freeze your enemies fast enough to cool yourself down and recover your “Frozenness”. If you cannot keep your Frozenness up you will melt away and have to either restart the level or the last checkpoint you were able to make it to. You battle through nine levels and defeat 4 bosses in order to escape hell.

Visibility of System StatusProblem Some HUD but doesn’t explain what it is.

Importance 4/5

Description The ‘health’/frozen bar doesn’t stand out at all, the coloration of it is dull and next to invisible while players focus on the tasks at hand such as surviving and progressing in the level.The time counter up at the top also seems to yield no significant value pertaining to the player. Most UI’s that implement counters of such sort give reason to needing them such as a time trial countdown or a time goal to beat.

Solution A simple fix would be to recolor or reposition the bar and possibly add a border around it to draw the eye. Perhaps even a time based scoring system at the end of the levels but Snow Way in Hell doesn’t. Better worded labels for each object of the HUD would be beneficial for player reference in terms of common words and names such as Health or Time Limit.

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Match Between System and The Real WorldProblem Visual Axis Rendering

Importance 5/5

Description The 3D rendering in Snow Way in Hell is rather difficult for players to grasp as it is a side scroll game yet yields depth. This would not be an issue however enemies such as the bats can recede into the plain of depth which the player cannot reach and yet they look like they’re still in the same zed axis as the player. This causes problems as a player cannot tell depth within Snow Way in Hell unless objects are static and do not move; this results in potential player frustration as their snowballs cannot hit the bats but the bats can bite the player character.

Solution It would be a simple matter to go into the games build and programming only to adjust the spawn points of the bats and other enemies which this affects and bring them into the same axis of rendering as the player and make the bats no longer able to move in three dimensions but instead only alter their Y and X axis through movement.

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User Control and FreedomProblem Not being able to save the game or restart levels.

Importance 2/5

Description The player is not given the ability to save their progress at any point in the game. Also, if players get stuck in an area of the game they are unable to get through, there is no option that can allow the player to restart the level or start back at the last checkpoint they were able to reach.

Solution When the player pauses the game, have a menu option come up where the player will have the option to save the game, restart the level, or start back at the last checkpoint they were able to reach.

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Consistency and StandardsProblem Inconsistent Physics

Importance 5/5

Description I have noticed while Playing Snow Way in Hell that the physics of the game are off by quite a large margin. It seems to me that when the programming of the game was underway they failed to take into account consistency in velocity. For example, when a player jumps and aren’t moving they can barely move at all, then when you start to run and then jump your velocity is constant until landing with again very little capability of moving in mid-air. While this physics logic is technically sound without getting into the raw calculations, video games generally do not incorporate such things due to the increase in player frustration and decrease in control functionality.

Solution A way for this to be solved would be for the programmer(s) to go into the attack script of the game and alter the code to reference duration of the click to alter the initial velocity of the snowball(s) based on a base Int speed and count system. As for the jumping if they merely activated player input what gravity is null and physics is null then essentially the player could maneuver better mid-air before the counter represented the peak of the players jump and enabled gravity only to enable physics once more once the player character hits the solid collider of the flooring.

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Error PreventionProblem Colliders and UI

Importance 4/5

Description While the level designer was introducing the colliders into the world it seemed he/she seemed to have neglected the proper fitting of some colliders and even perhaps forgot to make some into trigger colliders rather than actual physical colliders. This causes confusing, inconsistency, ‘bugs’ or ‘glitches’ in some player’s eyes and even in some cases annoyance and frustration. When going to quit the game there was no secondary questionnaire to remind the player that they will have to start all over and ask them if they are sure they want to quit the game.

Solution Add a UI panel with Text which is called into active on the hierarchy upon clicking the quit game that has a secondary set of buttons representing yes or no with the message regarding the loss of data and quitting of the game. In regards to the colliders it really is as simple as the Level Designer making the colliders fit tighter through their transform or instead using a mesh collider which is automatically uniform to the objects mesh renderer.

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Recognition Rather Than RecallProblem No instructions when encountering an item/object that you need to interact with to progress in the game.

Importance 3/5

Description Throughout the game you are introduced to new objects that help you interact with the game but they provide you no information on how to use/activate said object, or what the object’s function is. This can cause some frustration with players if they get stuck in certain areas and cannot figure out what it is they need to do.

Solution You can provide a small message to the player each time they come across a new interactive item/object that will explain what that specific item/object does, as well as how to activate that specific item/object.

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Flexibility and Efficiency of UseProblem Control setup

Importance 4/5

Description There are no options in the menu screen that show the layout for the controls, or allow the player to change the controls to better fit their play style.

Solution Provide a diagram of all the controls, and allow players the option to change the controls to their liking. If the designer and programmer were to work together and create a separate panel and text along with interactive buttons and sliders to alter base controls in the player controller script then it would be a simple matter to include them into a option screen whether in play or at main menu. The scripts would merely have to reference one another with public variables and script references.

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Aesthetic and Minimalist DesignProblem Health status

Importance 3/5

Description The “Frozeness” bar indicates the status of the players health, and slowly decreases over time. If the bar completely runs out, the player will die. This can be an issue to some players because they may not notice the bar drop down due to their focus being on other tasks in the game.

Solution When the health bar drops down to a certain percentage, an audio warning could activate informing the player that they must refill the bar quickly. The character could also start dripping profusely to indicate that they need to fill their health back up before they completely melt away.

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Help Users Recognize, Diagnose, and Recover From ErrorsProblem Avatar and health bar disappear when the character dies.

Importance 3/5

Description If the player dies in any way, the game character and health bar disappear with no explanation on how to reset the game. This may cause players to believe there is a glitch in the game.

Solution When the player dies, have the phrase “Snow Way”, show up on the screen, or something that will inform the player that they have died. At that point, an options menu could activate at the time of death that gives the player the choice to try again, or quit the game.

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Help and DocumentationProblem No source for help and documentation.

Importance 3/5

Description There is no resource for further information on the game other than the provided GDD which is not be available to your everyday player. There are no reference texts, help screens, tutorials, notifications, and the only real help you get is an audio reference for when you reach a new level, or when you reach a checkpoint.

Solution Have a resource for help at the start menu, and give a link to a website where the player can find further information on the game. Possibly even add in more audio based instructions if nothing else, allowing for the players to understand the game a little easier or potentially get a reference to what it is they are supposed to be doing, or find throughout their journey in hell.

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ReferencesNielsen J. January 1, 1995 http://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/

(Sticks-N-Stones)(2012) Snow Way In Hell