How to use these questions
Where possible, we try to provide survey response option scales that include:
Five or seven response points, in order to provide a reasonable trade off between granularity and ease of response,
A central neutral option,
Negative responses below the neutral response, and positive responses above it.
This structure allows us to assign positive, negative or neutral scores to responses (from -2 to +2, or -3 to +3) which can be helpful in visualising and communicating outcomes later on.
Some questions are scored in specific ways:
Where questions are reverse coded, this means that responses on the upper end of the scale are negative. If you want to compare these questions directly with other questions that are non reverse coded, you will need invert the scores.
Where questions are middle-optimal, this means that the most positive response is in the middle of the response scale. The lowest and highest scores here represent negative extremes: e.g. 'too hard' or 'too easy'.
These questions are not formally validated or part of a single tool or scale, so feel free to use individual items or modify questions for your current research goal. However, you might find more value in them by using them repeatedly, whether across multiple playtests, or in some cases, on multiple days on a longitudinal playtest. This way you can track changes to these responses over time, especially where you have enough players to aggregate responses.
How often did you feel frustrated while playing [game A]?
Multiple choice (single selection)
Reverse coded
1 – Never
2 – Rarely
3 – Sometimes
4 – Often
5 – Always
How often did you feel bored while playing [game A]?
Multiple choice (single selection)
Reverse coded
1 – Never
2 – Rarely
3 – Sometimes
4 – Often
5 – Always
How often did you feel confused while playing [game A]?
Multiple choice (single selection)
Reverse coded
1 – Never
2 – Rarely
3 – Sometimes
4 – Often
5 – Always
Overall, did you find [game A] enjoyable or unenjoyable?
Multiple choice (single selection)
1 – Very unenjoyable
2 – Unenjoyable
3 – Somewhat unenjoyable
4 – Neither enjoyable or unenjoyable
5 – Somewhat enjoyable
6 – Enjoyable
7 – Very enjoyable
How often did you feel that you wanted to stop playing [game A] during today's play session?
Multiple choice (single selection)
Reverse coded
1 – Never
2 – Rarely
3 – Sometimes
4 – Often
5 – Always
If you were not in a playtest, do you think you would return to [game A] after today's play session?
Multiple choice (single selection)
1 – Definitely would not
2 – Probably would not
3 – Neutral (neither would nor would not)
4 – Probably would
5 – Definitely would
If you were not in a playtest, how long do you think that you would play [game A] for?
Multiple choice (single selection)
Reverse coded
1 – More than once a day
2 – Once a day
3 – More than once a week
4 – Once a week
5 – Less often
6 – I would not play this game
How uninterested or interested are you in playing [game A] again?
Multiple choice (single selection)
1 – Not at all interested
2 – Slightly interested
3 – Moderately interested
4 – Very interested
5 – Extremely interested
Would you continue to play the [game A] after this playtest if invited?
Multiple choice (single selection)
1 – Definitely would not
2 – Probably would not
3 – Neutral (neither would nor would not)
4 – Probably would
5 – Definitely would