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Garden Souls Demo

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RatingsGreat (+2.5)Great (+2.5) — −3 strongly disagree … +3 strongly agree11 ratings ?
Playtime44 minlength of the session recording
AnsweredOct 15, 8:53 PMUTC
1Session 1 recording· 44 min
Think-aloud transcript· 43:51
  1. 00:02Okay. Let's begin playing Garden Souls.
  2. 00:06Okay. First, first impressions, um,
  3. 00:10I like it. This, I mean, this is a bit pixelated, so it looks old, but I guess that's the the aesthetic.
  4. 00:17But great controller support.
  5. 00:20Everything is very intuitive, um, as I would expect from any good game.
  6. 00:26So um, very good.
  7. 00:31And lands beyond they cry your name.
  8. 01:01Okay. This doesn't really mean anything to me, this text.
  9. 01:05So I I if I were just normal player, I would just skip this.
  10. 01:11It doesn't doesn't mean anything to me.
  11. 01:13So if you're actually trying to communicate something to your player to your players, I would change this.
  12. 01:29Oh, this is really nice. I like the I like these graphics a lot.
  13. 01:34Very bright,
  14. 01:36very vibrant, and I mean, this is this looks like um very legit game.
  15. 01:45What does come to
  16. 01:49Yeah, I like I like this. Very good.
  17. 01:51This is a voice.
  18. 01:57Oh.
  19. 01:59Animation is very good, too.
  20. 02:02I like it a lot.
  21. 02:07And double jump, that's cool.
  22. 02:10Oh, it's a coin.
  23. 02:20It's even go through these obstacles like Mario.
  24. 02:32Very nice. Okay.
  25. 02:39Oh, a second.
  26. 02:42Hm. Okay.
  27. 02:59Uh, wait. Where am I supposed to go here?
  28. 03:05RT.
  29. 03:14Oh, okay.
  30. 03:17I think that maybe I'm supposed to
  31. 03:21There you go.
  32. 03:24So I guess you you can't go through from underneath the wall.
  33. 03:33There's some walls that you can't
  34. 03:36go through.
  35. 03:39You like I got stuck by that that part there.
  36. 03:44Anyway, it's good. It's all good.
  37. 03:46Mhm. You basically I think time from the combo.
  38. 03:51Don't do I need to
  39. 04:00Hm, nice.
  40. 04:04Use cancel to interrupt your attack and continue your combo.
  41. 04:09Use cancel? You mean cancel?
  42. 04:13You mean use cancel. Or use cancel means but I can see it's like XXY.
  43. 04:32Yeah, so I guess you should change that. What does it doesn't make sense to say use cancel to interrupt your attack and continue your combo.
  44. 04:39What is cancel? It I'm not going to explain what cancel is.
  45. 04:50Oh,
  46. 04:51you're double jump. Oh.
  47. 04:54Hit three shots with the lunar pistol while in the air recovering your double jump.
  48. 04:58Three double jump three times without touching the ground.
  49. 05:03Wait. Hit Wait, what?
  50. 05:04Hit three shots with your lunar pistol while in the air recovering your double jump three times without touching the air.
  51. 05:12Okay, so that's the goal.
  52. 05:16Okay.
  53. 05:21Okay, so I I guess what I understand it now, but I think basically using your lunar pistol once recovers your double jump.
  54. 05:55Oh, the attack needs to land.
  55. 05:58Okay.
  56. 06:00And see, so that's a little confusing. Like, you need to
  57. 06:06So basically,
  58. 06:09Ah, okay. But now I don't know if maybe
  59. 06:13Okay, so
  60. 06:15hitting an enemy with your lunar pistol once recovers your lunar pistol.
  61. 06:22And then the task here is to recover your No, sorry.
  62. 06:27Hitting an enemy with a lunar pistol recovers your double jump.
  63. 06:31So it lets you double jump again if you've already used it.
  64. 06:33Next I'm not sure if that's true. But if you hit an enemy mid-air with your pistol, then you can then you can you get your double jump recovered.
  65. 06:43And the goal here is to recover your double jump three times.
  66. 06:48So it's a little That was a little confusing cuz I thought maybe you need to do it three times in order to recover your double jump.
  67. 06:55But anyway, I was able to figure it out.
  68. 06:57So
  69. 07:01Hm, princess, we need you
  70. 07:04there, that portal.
  71. 07:37No. Oh wait, I don't understand what's going on here.
  72. 07:40What's going on?
  73. 07:42Bring to bloom what has already fallen.
  74. 07:55Hm. Okay, I guess one thing here is that the text kind of goes into the the art and it can make it a little hard to read.
  75. 08:02So it might be good to cover the
  76. 08:07the
  77. 08:09text.
  78. 08:11Like put a background on text or something or bubble something.
  79. 08:27Yeah, I don't know what happened there. I don't I like the art, but I don't understand what's going on in the story.
  80. 09:30Wait, so is there like some
  81. 09:32parallel universe or something?
  82. 10:14Okay, so it seems like maybe
  83. 10:23It seems like maybe um the priestess did some kind of virtual thing which brought her into which brought the main character into the priestess's world.
  84. 10:39Uh
  85. 10:41and the main character had already defeated this enemy in her world, but now the priestess brought the main character onto her world to defeat the enemy again, but in a different world.
  86. 10:52Maybe. Then that would that wouldn't explain the statue.
  87. 10:55The statue's like honoring the who defeated the enemy.
  88. 10:59So maybe this statue is from the previous her original, the main character's original world, maybe.
  89. 11:15This
  90. 11:21What does this mean?
  91. 11:25This is
  92. 11:40I think I'm frozen. Oh.
  93. 12:01This is
  94. 12:04There's upgrades. Okay.
  95. 12:06Um, Rose dashes through enemies.
  96. 12:12Wait, which Rose? Is Rose the main character?
  97. 12:35Should I do this? Rose dashes through enemies, launching them diagonally upward for aerial combat.
  98. 12:45I don't like that.
  99. 12:57Improvements to the next area. Enhances one of the princess's attacks with the water element.
  100. 13:06What is this? Improvements to the next area?
  101. 13:10Oh, so this is like a reward you get.
  102. 13:14You can choose a reward you get in the the next area only?
  103. 13:19Not sure. Enhances one of the princess's attacks water element.
  104. 13:26And this is supposed to use three then pistol, then dash.
  105. 13:35See a large amount of golden clovers.
  106. 13:38Enhances one of the princess's attacks with the wind element.
  107. 13:47Wind or water? I guess water.
  108. 14:18Water can Enhances Okay.
  109. 14:20Enhances an attack with water magic, building water accumulation.
  110. 14:23After a certain amount of hits, wave strikes After a certain amount of hits, a wave This should be a comma there.
  111. 14:31After a certain amount of hits, the wave strikes enemies behind the target.
  112. 14:39Okay.
  113. 14:46Mm. Wait, what is this?
  114. 14:52Rose
  115. 14:54Rose, what's going on here?
  116. 14:59I don't know what's going on.
  117. 15:15Yeah, I don't know what's going on here.
  118. 15:18I guess I need to select one of these, but I don't know what's going to happen once I select something.
  119. 15:25I was just taken to this screen. I thought I just picked up the water element.
  120. 15:28I don't need to do anything else, but now I'm in this screen.
  121. 15:32And Well, okay, so I can see the little water thing, so maybe I need to select who the water element goes to.
  122. 15:43Okay, so that wasn't super clear.
  123. 15:44Maybe it
  124. 15:46gives one of those attacks the water element, but that was not clear.
  125. 16:40Okay, so I guess
  126. 16:51this one?
  127. 16:59Oh, wait a second.
  128. 17:07I like the progression so far. I think it's pretty good.
  129. 17:10Like it's teaching me things one step at a time.
  130. 17:13It's not rushed. I don't feel overwhelmed or anything, so it's pretty good so far.
  131. 17:19And flower always gifts the princesses the princess.
  132. 17:26And flower always gifts the princesses a magical item
  133. 17:31or the princesses. Receive a large amount of shining maples.
  134. 17:34I don't know what That's the other thing.
  135. 17:36Okay, so there's one thing like the clovers I have no idea what the clovers are for, so that's why in the first time I didn't select the clovers because I don't know how valuable they are.
  136. 17:47I mean, I I understand the value of combat, so that's why I selected one of the combat things, but clovers I have no idea.
  137. 17:55So maybe giving the player a sense of the importance of the clovers would be better before showing them this ability to select a clover, you know?
  138. 18:06Cuz then
  139. 18:08it's just little it's confusing.
  140. 18:12Also, the same thing with the maples.
  141. 18:13I don't know what the maples do, so I mean, I don't This choice is kind of ambiguous and it makes me like feel like maybe I'm missing some missing out something that I don't know.
  142. 18:25I want to make an informed decision.
  143. 18:28Yeah. Cancel gauge recharge.
  144. 18:31Increases the cancel gauge recharge speed, allowing it to be used one more off used more often in combos.
  145. 18:37See, that's another thing. I don't understand this cancel thing.
  146. 18:40So I also don't understand this cancel gauge.
  147. 18:43What's What is a cancel gauge?
  148. 18:47And also like it's easier to just mash the button so like canceling but using Y button Is that canceling using the Y button?
  149. 18:58And it's more difficult, but does it deal more damage?
  150. 19:02These are just mashed and it seems like I'm doing well just mashing.
  151. 19:12To cancel, if that's what it's called.
  152. 19:14Okay.
  153. 19:17Guess magical item is the only thing that
  154. 19:56This is the magical item.
  155. 20:00Roots enhance with floating petals.
  156. 20:02Allows an additional jump in midair.
  157. 20:06Additional jump. Crystal that concentrates the energy of moss creates vortex of fire projectiles and slows enemies.
  158. 20:18Wait, how do you create the vortex? I don't understand.
  159. 20:23Creates a vortex that fires projectiles and slows enemies.
  160. 20:27Okay, but how do you create the vortex?
  161. 20:29I don't understand. This one I understand.
  162. 20:31You You do get an additional jump in air.
  163. 20:34But creates a vortex.
  164. 20:36How do you create the vortex? Sounds good, but
  165. 20:44Now I'll just do the boots cuz I don't understand the other one.
  166. 21:22No. Wait, I died?
  167. 22:09There's the petals There's the petal smith, the guild master, and the great shaman sage.
  168. 22:14If you find any of them in the hall
  169. 22:57Where can I go back to previous? I missed what she said.
  170. 23:02I guess I cannot go back to the previous thing.
  171. 23:07No. No, I cannot.
  172. 23:16I like the expressions. Good.
  173. 23:31So I guess the conversation repeats.
  174. 23:33A nice touch would be to like
  175. 23:36make it seem like you know, they already had this conversation.
  176. 23:40It's something that Elden Ring does, which I think is pretty good.
  177. 23:44That like
  178. 23:46You know, she's the nice touch. I I know that I already talked to this character.
  179. 23:51And so if you make it so that the world responds to that, the world also knows that you already talked to this character.
  180. 23:56And so then the dialogue kind of changes a little bit.
  181. 23:59That's a nice touch that I think
  182. 24:02it's good.
  183. 24:11I think so.
  184. 24:14I thought I was supposed to talk to someone.
  185. 24:19I thought I thought it'd be one of these people here.
  186. 24:22One of these things that I can
  187. 24:25talk to, like the armorsmith.
  188. 24:28Or who are they? There's uh
  189. 24:33Wait, it repeats the conversation.
  190. 24:37Wait, why is it repeating the conversation?
  191. 24:38That's kind of annoying.
  192. 24:45Take them to one of the merchants.
  193. 24:46I'm sure they'll Peddler Smith, Guildmaster and Grayson the Sage.
  194. 24:51Okay.
  195. 24:53Find any of them here in the hall and try to do business.
  196. 24:56Right, of course. Here in the hall.
  197. 24:58Okay. So, I mean I don't see them here in the hall, so I guess I cannot I cannot do business with them.
  198. 25:17I guess it's closed. That's what the signs are for, maybe.
  199. 25:23What is this for? It'd be nice if I can interact with maybe interact with it later.
  200. 25:28Or the signs. It'd be nice if I can interact with the signs, too.
  201. 25:32Okay, City Rose Inn. Are all my grades gone?
  202. 25:37Yep, they are.
  203. 26:13Let's try this one.
  204. 26:36Is it the maples? I mean I don't know what they do, but seems like it could be
  205. 27:19Where are the shiny maples? Oh.
  206. 27:24So, there's two types of There's the maples and then there's the clovers.
  207. 27:32I don't know how this cancel stuff works.
  208. 28:18Okay. I guess we'll give the
  209. 28:22What is this?
  210. 28:24See, it doesn't tell me what I'm doing.
  211. 28:28I'm giving Is it wind?
  212. 28:41Hm?
  213. 30:44Nice. I don't have much health.
  214. 30:46I feel like I'm playing well.
  215. 31:05Merchant, that's nice.
  216. 31:32Very you found some golden clovers along the way.
  217. 31:35Bring me a few. I'm not going to offer you some useful items to help.
  218. 31:41Yeah, so she Oh, she's a golden clover.
  219. 31:51Adds an extra projectile to the See, the Y is very small.
  220. 31:55It's hard to read. You can see Come on.
  221. 31:58To the Y attack for increased range pressure.
  222. 32:05Extra projectile
  223. 32:08for increased ranged pressure.
  224. 32:18Launches any diagonally up. Okay, wait.
  225. 32:21So
  226. 32:22There's an extra attack.
  227. 32:25There is
  228. 32:27increased range and also launches enemies diagonally up.
  229. 32:31Or is it always launch enemies diagonally upward?
  230. 32:35Chase is the enemy and periodically bites them, dealing damage and applying slow to reduce their speed.
  231. 32:42Okay, but is this an item you use or When does this get activated?
  232. 32:48Magical spores that weaken your adversaries attacks have a chance to apply slow to enemies.
  233. 32:57Yeah, but how do you use this? I don't understand how you use this.
  234. 33:00Launches two wind projectiles that bounce off walls and hit multiple times.
  235. 33:06Again. Oh, press B to perform.
  236. 33:08Okay, this one press B. Launches two wind projectiles that bounce off walls and hit multiple enemies.
  237. 33:13Okay, so I can just So I can I use this unlimited times?
  238. 33:17How does it work?
  239. 33:25Put on sale. Why does it say
  240. 33:32Why is this one green while the other ones are not?
  241. 33:41I can buy two things.
  242. 33:44Oh, I didn't see this one.
  243. 33:46Oh, but I don't know how this cancel stuff works anyway.
  244. 33:51Oh, okay. So it just takes some time to recharge.
  245. 34:00Mini boss.
  246. 34:05Face powerful creatures to earn greater rewards.
  247. 34:07Okay.
  248. 34:10What are the greater rewards? I don't know.
  249. 34:13Let's see. Oh, but I hardly have any health.
  250. 34:29Oof. Yeah. I hardly have any health, so That was kind of expecting.
  251. 34:47Monk hasn't lived through any of what you have.
  252. 34:54What do you mean that one? That one hasn't lived.
  253. 35:03So I turn back into a seedling and lose all power I earned on top of it.
  254. 35:07Is there any good news?
  255. 35:11Corruption stop.
  256. 35:25What gifts was he talking about?
  257. 35:45Ah, I just keeps repeating same question.
  258. 35:50I already had this conversation. That one happened again.
  259. 35:53I want to see if there's something new to talk about.
  260. 36:00Yeah, I like that you have to press RP to tap conversation not A.
  261. 36:04You don't start the conversation over if you're spamming.
  262. 36:08Okay. That'd be nice if you can interact with these guys so I know what it means.
  263. 36:14So I mean I can't read those signs.
  264. 36:20Oh, nice. There's a merchant here now.
  265. 36:22I like this. I like that there's like okay there's something new happening here.
  266. 36:26It's not just always the same thing.
  267. 36:28That adds some excitement.
  268. 37:04Wait, so
  269. 37:06uh okay so it seems like
  270. 37:10seems like this hides your
  271. 37:14this menu. See?
  272. 37:17This menu's hiding the stats on the top right.
  273. 37:20So I think that's that's a bug.
  274. 37:22Got to fix that.
  275. 37:30Max health. I saw this good.
  276. 37:33Oh, wait so
  277. 37:37the Golden Clover's transfer seems like maybe zero but it's blocked.
  278. 37:45So this guy's um
  279. 37:48um
  280. 37:50what is it called? Pedal Maple Fluff Maple Pedal trader.
  281. 37:55Oh, but I don't have enough for anything.
  282. 37:58Sucks.
  283. 38:50Okay, so I can see that the lore is kind of intricate but I'm not I don't know I read everything but I still don't feel that invested.
  284. 39:02Maybe you discover lore as you go but I don't know.
  285. 39:06I think at the beginning I'd like to see a little more like
  286. 39:12a little more of the lore like a little more about Rose and what she
  287. 39:19was like back then. You learn these things as you go but I want something up front like something um how to describe it like
  288. 39:30get me more invested in Rose first.
  289. 39:33And then when dialogues like this come up then
  290. 39:38I'm more interested in it and I want to learn more but right now it's kind of like
  291. 39:43okay she was uh she's popular.
  292. 39:45You can tell by the way she talks to people
  293. 39:49and how people interact with her but like
  294. 39:56yeah I'm not that invested.
  295. 40:40Okay, so it seems like there's some conflict that maybe would be nice if it was brought up up front instead of just passing like this where you need to read carefully to understand.
  296. 40:54Because it yeah it seems important like you have this goddess of the moon and Rose doesn't like her but the people here in this world do like her.
  297. 41:04There's just little tiny hints about it but
  298. 41:07yeah I don't
  299. 41:11there's just about lore.
  300. 41:26Okay, so I don't have anything to upgrade. Okay, so yeah I'll take a break for now but
  301. 41:34I really like this game so far.
  302. 41:37It's really good, really well made.
  303. 41:39It's polished. Um
  304. 41:43yeah I I still don't understand the combo thing.
  305. 41:47It's cancelled.
  306. 41:52I guess it's just that whenever you use a combo you use it but
  307. 42:00I guess like maybe it's the case that combos are powerful.
  308. 42:05And
  309. 42:07you want to limit the number of combos that you can do.
  310. 42:10I haven't felt the combos to be that powerful.
  311. 42:14Maybe that's why I never use them.
  312. 42:19Yeah. This is the only combo I know, I guess.
  313. 42:27Yeah, so sound felt in health.
  314. 42:31I don't know how to restore health. I don't know how to do proper
  315. 42:36management.
  316. 42:38Also, I mean, you can do this.
  317. 42:41You can dash, but
  318. 42:43I'm assuming dashing lets you gives you invisibility.
  319. 42:49And so if in the tutorial you can if you want people to use it more, you can learn it on their own, but you can also teach them up front for slightly new players like me.
  320. 43:00Teach them up front dodging or like dash lets you lets you dodge attacks.
  321. 43:07If that's true, then it'd be good to introduce that so that people can actually use it and
  322. 43:14while they're playing. I think that add a level of complexity that I think you want people to use, but beginners might not
  323. 43:23take it up that quickly, so you got to introduce it to them.
  324. 43:30Maybe jumping also.
  325. 43:33Yeah, I don't know.
  326. 43:35Yeah.
  327. 43:36But anyway, so I'll just stop here for now.
  328. 43:40But game is really good and I want to keep playing it.
  329. 43:44It's actually it's a great game.
  330. 43:51Yeah, it's a really great game.
  1. functionalAudiovisual appealThe game looked and sounded great.Agree (+2)
  2. ChallengeThe level of difficulty felt just right.Strongly agree (+3)
  3. Ease of controlIt was easy to figure out which buttons and keys did what.Strongly agree (+3)
  4. Clarity of goalsI always knew what my goals were in the game.Agree (+2)
  5. Progress feedbackI got clear feedback on how I was doing.Agree (+2)
  6. psychosocialAutonomyI had the freedom to choose how I played.Agree (+2)
  7. CuriosityI was curious to see more of the game.Strongly agree (+3)
  8. ImmersionI felt fully immersed in the game.Agree (+2)
  9. MasteryI felt like I was playing well.Agree (+2)
  10. MeaningPlaying felt like time well spent.Strongly agree (+3)
  11. enjoymentEnjoymentThe game was fun.Strongly agree (+3)
  12. Reviewer noteOverall, I thought this was a really well-made, polished, and great game that I definitely want to keep playing [41:37, 43:40]. The controller support felt intuitive right away and the visual presentation and animations look vibrant and legit [0:17, 1:34, 1:59]. However, there are a few communication and usability hiccups. The tutorial prompt mentioning 'use cancel' doesn't explain what cancel or the cancel gauge actually is [4:09, 18:40]. Offering rewards like Golden Clovers and Shining Maples before explaining their worth makes choices confusing [17:34, 18:13], and shop descriptions don't clearly state how items activate [32:42]. There was also a UI bug where the merchant interface covers the stats in the top-right corner [37:17]. Finally, I found it hard to get invested in the lore early on [38:50] and noticed dialogue repeats verbatim rather than acknowledging past conversations [23:33, 35:50].