Hi there people, playtesting is a great tool for improving the development process when making a game and I am here to tell you why.
Playtesting has bee very important for me and my group during the course of this project as it has given us invaluable information that can only be gathered through this kind of testing, namely the opinions of the end-users. As a part of the playtest we incorporated a survey for the players to fill out, rating their experience with the game and commenting on certain question we had tailored regarding assets we wanted to be tested.
The opinions of the group that makes the game is relevant to some aspects, but far from sufficient in order to produce a satisfying product to ship out for potential customers. The group is getting used to the game and all its elements, which can make them ignore certain assets and mechanics. I.e. Me as a game designer spent alot of time playtesting the game in between changes, doing numbercrunching and itteration. I became very comfortable with the gameplay and the level, which eventually made me think it was “too easy”. As a fix to the problem I just changed the numbers until I thought the game was close to “hard” to beat. This turned out to be a major issue for the majority of the playtesters during the Alpha, as a common response from the survey was “it’s too hard”. It would be fine if the players were casual close to non-gamers, but in this case the play-testers were your avarage gamer, making it an issue. This would not have been spotted without the help from a non-group member. We need the voice of an outside party such as the end game user as it is for them that we create the game.
As an example, by looking at the results of the survey from our Alpha Playtest and by applying changes with the testers comments in mind, we managed to improve the outcome of our Beta playtest. We still got alot of constructive critisism, though it was not as “harsh” as the previous and there was a great difference in how people were commenting, as they seemed to enjoy the game overall alot more than they seemed to do during the Alpha playtest. The game had been improved between the Alpha and Beta so of course we got “friendlier” comments during the later session, however it was enhanced greatly because of the testers.
/Hampus Serrestam
Hampus Game Blog 