ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the tension between usability testing and play testing through the case study of our game Shattered Sky, a game created by Holly Fletcher, Zach Garbowitz, Thane Sanford, and Alex Tilley. The Shattered Sky team sought to push the boundaries of computer game technology in order to create a truly dynamic narrative. As the Shattered Sky development team discovered, the interaction between traditional usability testing and narrative is a complicated one. The relationship between the characteristics of play and narrative seems to be a purely synergistic one, with various aspects of play assisting in narrative processes. While the human-centric nature of the usability criteria of satisfaction allays much of tension between usability, narrative, and play, it cannot escape its work-based origins. Although traditional usability is largely unsuitable for the evaluation of a narrative-based game such as Shattered Sky, the field of affective usability shows greater promise.
