Player tests

Testing at the Melbourne Playground, held on 28 October 2018, showed Frog's Princesses popularity with a surprising range of players.

Younger children and boys tended not to engage unless their parents showed interest in the game.  Then they became as interested as the girls.

So long as players understood it was an interactive novel and not a fast-moving game, they generally became involved in the story, to the extent that four children from four separate family groups were distraught to leave.  Kathy emailed builds of the game to the parents so the children could finish the story.

The game was made available on Apple tablet, Apple Mac (in the Unity editor), Android phone and Windows laptop.

Children

Thank you to all the children who gave their very frank opinions about Frog's Princess and helped make it a better storybook.

STEM teacher, Lachlan Norman

Frog’s Princess debuted in Lachy Norman’s Year 3 classroom in June 2022 where it was used as a start off example for Narrative Writing.

Students completed mood matching tests before and after gameplay in an attempt to determine whether Frog’s Princess had affected their empathy for strangers.

Fun was had by all, and students raced through their exercises for the reward of extra gameplay.

Thanks to Lachy for being an innovative creative teacher!

Anne Smith, Lead Quality Assurance

Anne puts her wealth of experience as avid gamer, parent, carer, and  customer service representative to good use finding glitches in the game assets and gameplay.

Her thorough QA is just what we needed.  We are grateful.  Really.

Phillip Cook, UI Whisperer

Phillip has a strong dedication to the player's experience and a Bachelor of Creative Arts in Digital Media which means we have to listen to him when he suggests REALLY BIG changes to our user interface.

David Francis, Quality Assurer

David is an expert gamer and had a lot to say about Frog's Princess not being a proper game!  His feedback has been invaluable in terms of general player experience as well as physically challenged player experience.

Vicki Borthwick, Artist

Haven't we seen this face before?  Indeed we have!  Vicki created creatures for the game, including the fabulous elephant which turns into an ogre.  AND she created UI.
Vicki turned her hand to checking long lists of things for the final launch.

Louise Lawrence, Software Engineer

Louise has an Honours degree in Computer Science and she has given life to very cute creatures in mixed reality settings.  As such, she was highly qualified to help out when we need a last minute going-over of the game before launch.
Email: louise.lawrence@outlook.com

Kathy Smart, Producer

Of course Kathy helped test her own game.  She was responsible for, among other things, testing the screen reader functionality of the PC build.  And... well... she might have accidentally tested it in the game engine instead.  And, of course, the only failure was, you guessed it - in the PC build.

Royal Society for Blind People in South Australia

Following on from the very generous help that the RSB gave to Kathy when she was making a VR game for blind people, which was a student game which was never published, the RSB has again allowed Kathy to design and test her game with the help of staff members with visual impairment.

AIE students

Game design teacher Adam Bailey volunteered his students to QA Frog's Princess.  They did such a good job, Kathy awarded them JB HiFi vouchers for Most Thoughtful Bug Reports, Funniest Bug Report, Shortest Bug Report, Most Important Bug, Most Organised Bug Reports, Most Bugs, and Best Documented Bug.  Thank you, Academy of Interactive Entertainment, Adelaide!