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“Can you show yourself? Why are you here?”. Then bamm! The door slammed shut by itself. This is Phasmophobia, the latest co-op horror game with VR support released by Kinetic Games onto Steam in September this year.
You play as one of up to four investigators. The main goal is to gather evidence with the choices of ghost hunting equipments and try to identify what kind of ghost it is being haunted by. The correct answer will be rewarded by money that you can buy more supplies for future ghost hunts. If your sanity level is low enough, you will be the target for the ghost to kill. The sound design, lighting..it is terrifying indeed!
As I just stepped into the world of UX design, I wanted to use what I’ve learnt so far to suggest improvements on the user experience of this game.
“The system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time.” (Jakob Nielsen’s Heuristics’ Evaluation #1)
Feedback is important as players need to know if their interaction was executed, before deciding their next steps.
In Phasmophobia, you’ll lose sanity when you are exposed to paranormal activity, that’s normal. But the low sanity will make you prone to ghost hunting. Players can only check their sanity level in the van. There is no visual feedback on the screen nor the shortcut for players to check their sanity when they are in the building.
I understand that minimal UI design helps create an immersive user experience, ensuring users to stay focused in ghost hunting. However, I still think it would be great if there’s a shortcut for players to check the sanity level without leaving the building.
“Users often choose system functions by mistake and will need a clearly marked “emergency exit” to leave the unwanted state without having to go through an extended dialogue. A good user experience must Support undo and redo.” (Jakob Nielsen’s Heuristics’ Evaluation #3)
In Phasmophobia, players have to ensure the controls have been verified before jumping into the game.
Once they entered the lobby, there’s no button for users to go back to the options for changing the configuration. The only way is to leave the group for accessing the options menu.
Provide an option at the lobby for users to change without leaving the group.
Flexibility is important as the game should be able to cater both inexperienced and experienced players.
Players will be levelled up by completing the contracts. However, even the players met the level requirement for the difficulty that they wish to play, the location can still be in a lower difficulty.
So how can players change the level of difficulty?
Unfortunately, the level of the difficulty on each location is randomly defined. There’s no way for players to select the level of difficulty on the contract. You can either choose select or go back.
Add a drop down box on the contract for players to choose the difficulty of the location when they met the level requirement.
Phasmophobia is definitely a creative and terrifying co-op game. With the voice recognition feature, Phasmophobia brings realistic experience to its users, adding another level of immersion like you are being heard and watched by the ghosts. It would be great if the game gives users a higher level of flexibility and sense of control.
