Adding Games ~ User Stories

General Game User Stories

Hints & Take-Backs:

Tim plays his first-ever game of “Cool Game” on the Chigame website. He’s unsure of some of the rules, so he creates a game against an easy bot. He also activates the “allow hints” and “allow take-backs” options. Once he starts the game, he sees a button labeled “hint” and another button labeled “undo move”. He clicks on “hint,” and one of his pieces is highlighted, indicating that moving it would be a good option. He then clicks on the piece, and a space to move it is highlighted, indicating that that space would be a good option. He moves the piece to that location. Tim plays a couple more moves without hints but realizes he has started to lose. He uses the “undo move” button to undo the last few turns, which moves back his pieces and the pieces that the bot moved to where they were before each turn was completed.

In-game rulebook:

Jim is playing a game of “Cool Game” on the Chigame website. It’s been a while since he played, so he clicks on the “rules” button, which opens a menu, without removing Jim from his game, that displays the rules of “Cool Game”. This menu includes a search bar that has autofill. Jim decides that reading is hard and closes the menu.

Winning:

John beats Tim in a game. A “You Win!” message is displayed to John, and he is given three options: “menu”, “rematch”, and “new game”. He thought Tim was an easy opponent and really likes winning, so he clicks on “rematch”. This creates a pop-up stating “Waiting for Tim’s Response”. After waiting a few seconds, the pop-up changes to state “Tim has denied your rematch”. The pop-up closes automatically 30 seconds after Tim denies the rematch. John is still given the option to click “menu” or “new game”.

Losing:

Tim loses to John in a game of “Cool Game”. A “You Lose!” message is displayed to Tim, and he is given three options: “menu”, “rematch”, and “new game”. As he thinks about what to do, a pop-up stating “John wants a rematch” is displayed, with an option to “accept” or “deny”. Tim doesn’t want to lose again, so he clicks “deny”. He wants to keep playing “Cool game”, though, so he clicks “new game”, and is brought to the “Creating a Lobby” screen with “Cool Game” already selected.

Pre-Game Settings Menu:

In his last game, John disliked one of the default rules: the turn timer was too short. He can adjust this timer from the “Creating a Lobby” screen. He sets it to be 10 minutes for his next game. He also sees a button titled “custom rules”. He is intrigued by this and clicks the button. He is brought to a page listing variant rules for the game. These variant rules can come from the person who adds a game to Chigame or from the community. John sees a variant ruleset titled “start with kings” and selects to use that ruleset. He is returned to the “Creating a Lobby screen”. This screen displays the variant ruleset that John is using, and that the turn timer is still set to 10 minutes.

Bots:

If John wants, he has the opportunity to make a mixed lobby of bots and players for any game that supports bots. These bots also have settings to tweak. For most games, bots include 3 or more different difficulties: easy, medium, and hard. When playing in a lobby with bots, John still has the ability to change the regular game settings, like the duration of the turn timer.

In-Game Menu:

John can open a menu while playing a game on Chigame. This menu has general settings and buttons labeled “Colorblind/Accessibility settings” and “Report player,” which open sub-menus. Manipulating settings in the menu or opening a sub-menu doesn’t remove John from his game. John sees an option to adjust the website's volume, so he turns it down and returns to playing his game. When his opponent moves a piece, the sound effect is quieter.

Colorblind/Accessibility settings:

From the in-game menu, John selects “Accessibility Settings”, which opens a sub-menu. In this sub-menu, John sees options to adjust the size of the Game and GUI, turn on colorblind mode, and hide the timer unless he hovers his mouse over it. John, who gets anxious under time constraints, decides to turn the hide timer setting on. Now, when he plays a game, he sees a box labeled “timer” instead of the turn timer unless he hovers his mouse cursor over that box.

In-Game reporting:

From the in-game menu, John selects “Report player”, which opens a sub-menu. In this sub-menu, John sees a field where he can enter the username of another a user to report, a drop-down list of reasons for reporting players, a field where he can enter more details, and a submit button. John clicks in the username field. Before he starts typing, he sees “Username1 (current opponent)” and “Username2 (previous opponent)” as autofill options. As he begins typing, the autofill recommendations change to other usernames. Once John has entered a valid username, he clicks on the reason drop-down list. He sees options for “Cheating”, “Harmful Language”, “Harmful Username”, and “Bad Sportsmanship”. John selects “Bad Sportsmanship”, which closes the dropdown menu. In the more details field, John writes, “I played checkers against Jeff. They waited to end their turn until there was only one second left every turn for the whole game!”. John clicks submit, and the report sub-menu closes.

Pausing/Returning to Games:

From the in-game menu, John selects pause, which takes him back to the Chigame home screen. When he decides he wants to return to that game (or some other game he has also paused), the home screen has a section of paused games. John selects the game he wants to re-enter, and the screen goes back to that game.

Spectating a friend’s game:

Amy sees that John is playing a game of “Cool Game” and clicks the “Watch” button next to his name in her friends list. She is brought into a spectator view of the match. She can’t make moves, but she can see both players' moves in real-time and use chat to talk to other spectators.

In-game chat:

While playing “Cool Game,” John wants to send a message to one of his opponents Tim. He clicks on the chat icon in the sidebar and types out his message. He selects Tim as the recipient and clicks send. Tim gets a message notification on his end and replies.

Score tracking:

During a competitive game, Lisa checks the score panel to see the current point total and number of moves each player has made. This panel is located at the top of the website above the game area. The panel updates in real-time as the game progresses so that players can keep track of their standing and how their opponents are doing.

Blocking players:

After a bad experience, John blocks “PlayerX” from their profile. He does this by searching them up on the Chigame website or immediately after playing the game by clicking on PlayerX’s profile image. He won’t be matched with them again and won’t receive messages or friend requests from them.

Game tips:

On his first time playing “Cool Game,” John sees a pop-up overlay that offers tips on how to play. These tips are specific to the phase of the game he’s in and show up as short messages like “Try placing your strongest pieces near the center.” He can click “Next” or “Don’t Show Again” on each tip. These pop-ups help him get started without opening the full rulebook.

Invite to game:

Maria wants to challenge her friend John to a game of “Cool Game.” From her friends list, she clicks Alex’s name and selects “Invite to Game.” A menu pops up allowing her to choose the game, customize the rules, and set the turn timer. She sends the invite, and Alex gets a notification in real-time with the option to accept or decline.

Game completion:

After finishing a match, John is shown a summary screen. It shows his win/loss status, how many turns were played, and how long the game lasted. Below that, there’s a timeline view of every move made during the match. He clicks “View Moves” to scroll through and reflect on key decisions during the game. There are also profile images of all the players in case John wants to send friend requests or block people.

Turn notifications:

Tim is playing multiple games on Chigame at once and has paused one while waiting for his opponent to move. Later, while browsing the site, he receives a pop-up notification that it’s his turn in “Cool Game.” He clicks the notification, which takes him directly back into the game. The board is already loaded, and the turn timer begins counting down.