A mixed bag

I let 2 of my friends tried out the first puzzle today and here are their comments and my observations. (Negative comments have a - and positive comments have a + in front of them)
- Comment was that it looks boring
+ Puzzle is quite fun
- Irrelevant dialog should be cut and only dialog related to the puzzle or other puzzles should be used
- Player was lost with regards on where to click and where to do a mouse over
- Player did not read the dialog and clicked on it rapidly to get to the gameplay aspect
- Something must be done to let the player read the dialog
+ Puzzle gameplay was intuitive and player actually read the information after doing a mouse over on the items and succeeded in combining the items correctly on the first try
+ Player solved the puzzle on the first try and that is due to reading the item description on what was needed to solve the puzzle
- There should be an introduction to the background story for the game
- Keywords in the dialog should be colored red and set to bold
- There should be some animation for the background and the character as it looks too static now

Seems like we are on the right track with the puzzle, but these comments and observations also tell us that we have a long way to go in polishing this game.

Profile of my 2 friends
- 1 is a sales and marketing executive. Age 28 and married. Not technically inclined, but is a game player. Plays games on her PDA on a very regular basis, but never actively seeks out games to play. Only plays whatever games that she can find. Westernized outlook.

- 2 is a TV serial producer. Single, aged 29. Not technically inclined, but plays casual games on a regular basis. Favorite games include Puzzle Bobble, Tetris, Bejewelled and Time Crisis (All share a similarity in that the gameplay is of the pick-up-and-play variety). Westernized outlook and actively seeks out new games on the internet to play. Avoids hardcore games such as RTS, FPS, RPGs etc and those with excessive violence, sex and gore. So no UT or Quake for her.