Into The Breach User Research

By Michael Maslowski
The Game
The Focus of the Research

• How did players interpret this information for strategies

• Question 1:What was your primary strategy in the levels?
• Question 2: How influential were the bonus objectives to your strategy?
• Question 3: Were there any factors within a level that changed your
approach to your strategy?
 What was your
The Results of Question 1: primary strategy in
the levels?

1. Player 1: Mitigating damage to buildings was the priority over losing mechs.
Focused on moving enemies away from buildings.
2. Player 2:Keeping mechs alive long enough to last a turn.
3. Player 3: Pushing enemies away. Prioritized mechs over buildings
4. Player 4: Focus less on the bad guys, prioritized changing the enemies’
targets
5. Player 5:Prioritize units threatening buildings or other units. Move enemies or
block attacks onto buildings using mechs.

Overall Takeaway:
- Players opted to move enemies the most in their strategy.
- There was an even split on whether to prioritize mechs or buildings
 How influential were the
The Results of Question 2: bonus objectives to your
strategy?
1. Player 1: Did not impact much on the overall strategy. Did not pay attention to them.
2. Player 2: Forgot there were bonus objectives since they were focused on the primary
gameplay of the game.
3. Player 3: Influenced what mission to complete in overworld, less of priority in mission,
but tried to achieve it.
4. Player 4: What bonus objectives?
5. Player 5: Initially did not see bonus objectives, they were not influential. Wanted to
learn mechanics before achieving bonus objectives.

Overall Takeaway:
- The bonus objectives were often forgotten or not influential to a player’s strategy.
- In some cases, players were focused more on gameplay mechanics instead of bonus
objectives.
 Were there any factors within a

The Results of Question 3: level that changed your approach

to your strategy?

1. Player 1: Undo button changed initial formation of strategy.

2. Player 2: When enemies were emerging, considered to sacrifice hp to keep
enemies from spawning into the level.
3. Player 3: Webbed was a major factor in strategies, focused enemies that
webbed mechs in order to enable movement on mech.
4. Player 4: For enemies with high health, strategy turned from killing enemies
to moving them into less dangerous positions.
5. Player 5: Focused on displacing enemies into water, and environmental tiles
such as trees were targeted
Overall Takeaway:
- Most players changed their strategy in response to an enemy’s action
- Only one player considered environmental tiles when forming their strategy
What can be improved

More attention drawn

Clearer explanation on Importance of Bonus
towards environmental
how mechs work Objectives
tiles
Clearer explanation on
how mechs work

• Active rather than reactive

information
• Explanation of mechs that
requires player to take
some time to understand
• A required step in the
tutorial that shows affects of
damage
 Importance of Bonus Objectives

• An explanation of what the rewards entail within

the level
• A timer on option to click past mission reward
explanation
• More evident inclusions of bonus objectives within
tutorial
 More attention drawn
towards environmental
tiles

• A step in the tutorial requiring

some use of environmental tiles
• Better indicator of an
environmental tile than just art
• Proactive education of
mechanic rather than reactive