User-Focused Research on Moonlighter

Moonlighter is an interesting take on both the tycoon and roguelike genre. The game has a unique gameplay loop, so I wanted to analyze how players interact with these systems. I structured the research sessions by asking participants to complete 2 days in-game. I also created key questions to analyze the player's understanding of gameplay mechanics.

 

These questions are:
- What are the controls to move/attack?

- What influenced your choice to price certain items?

- How do you discover the best price to sell an item?

- Are there interactable objects in the dungeon? What are they?

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These questions focused on specific aspects of the game: the shop management aspect, the combat aspect, and the exploration aspect of the game.

From the research I conducted, I discovered several interesting behaviors. One of the behaviors was that some players avoided the shop management aspect of the game which caused problems further into their experience. Another behavior occurred when every play-tester misunderstood how the return pendant mechanic work which lead to many runs being frustratingly lost.

 

The full research process, documentation, and design recommendations are included in the document link below.