Hello, this is ZERO ONE SOFT.
To find out whether the design intent behind Camp Dawn that we shared in our last dev log actually comes through for real players, we met players directly through a small-scale FGT (focus group test) and an exhibition event.
The test ran in three stages:
Pre-interview: check each player's usual genre preferences and play style
Play observation: watch without intervening, to see where players get stuck and where they have fun
Post-interview: gather in-depth feedback on their experience
Through this process, we wanted to verify whether the core fun we designed in dev log #1 actually comes through to players.
Meaningful Results
In testing, most players picked up the destroy → scavenge → craft loop on their own without much guidance, and combat against the infected landed the way we intended.
What made us happiest was hearing that "the story is intuitive." That meant the relationship between father and daughter, and the structure where the two of them see the same situation differently, came through without needing any explanation. So we've decided to keep this direction as is.
Areas to Improve
That said, we also found several critical problems that hadn't been visible from the developer's point of view.
Players couldn't tell what Signposts did (moving between towns)
In the existing build, the Signposts on the road were meant to let players travel to other towns (stages), but players didn't recognize this and just wandered around the area instead.
Based on this feedback, we're going to revise stage travel to make it more intuitive.
Getting resources wasn't intuitive
It was hard to tell which objects to smash to get the resource you wanted.
We're currently working out a way to solve this by matching the tutorial's flow to the resources players learn about along the way.
Closing
This test gave us something valuable: confidence in the direction we're heading, and a clear picture of what still needs fixing.
In the next dev log, we'll share what changes we're making based on the feedback from this test.
Thank you. See you in the next dev log.