Playtesting

Playtesting is key in an Agile development cycle, it’s a good way to make iterations of your game fast. So that you always know if something works and is fun to play as soon you have it in a testable state. As the game designer of the group I have tested the game a lot over these weeks, and I also built the level. So after I while I know the map and the game so good that it isn’t […]

Blog post 5: Playtesting

Hello there.
This week I am going to talk about how playtesting has affected the development of the game “Depth”. During this course we had two different sessions of planned playtesting, where everyone in the course and teachers, tests all of the games in development. The first session was right before the alpha presentation and the second session was right before the beta presentation.
To do this, we used two computers with the then latest version of the game. When people came […]

What is play? Baby, don’t test me, don’t test me, no more

Hi!
it’s blog time again! This time subject being playtesting and its effect on our game development.
Both the first and second playtesting session has been helpful for us, team Kraken, in order to improve our game, Aetherial. When observing the testers try out our game, we noticed many things regarding the gameplay and design that have not been obvious to us earlier. I, as manager, added extra time to our meetings in order to go through all the data that we’ve […]

Playtesting – how did it affect our development?

The game me and my group decided to make was Umibozu. We tweaked the theme of the game and put the sailor into a swamp. You might remember us as the Umibozu game with a swarm of alligators heading your way.
For the first playtest, we didn’t really have much to ask in the questionnaire people answered after each playtest, as we were barely done with everything needed for the alpha. We basically only had a moving boat, one power-up and […]

Testing, testing.

Now we are not far away from the deadline of having to present the finished game. Throughout the development process we have used some tools to help us. Other than scrum (which I have described the advantages of in another blogpost), there has been another very important thing that we have had to our help: playtesting.
Without the valuable feedback from the playtesting, our game would probably be very difficult, because when you develop a game you playtest it yourself over […]

Test, Test and Then Test Some More, The Great Regret

The blind-eye
Playtesting in all of its variation is an integral part of iterative design. when used well it can help identify problems that were hidden in plain sight. How and when you playtest is of most importance, testing often and testing specifics of your game gives you a greater understanding of your game and its systems. With greater understanding comes greater mastery of your game, which blindsided me to the difficulty and learning curve of me and my team’s game.
Me […]

Play-testing

Hiiiiiiiiiiii!
This week we are required to write about play-testing and how it has affected the development of our game.
During the production of our shoot ‘em ups we have had two play-testing opportunities. One right before the Alpha deadline and the second right before our Beta deadline. The play-testing is basically a workshop where every team set up at least two laptops with their game for all the other teams to test. At least one member of the team is present […]

Prototyping, testing, and play testing

Each of them has the same goal but different purpose – game prototyping, software testing, and play testing are important processes during digital game development as they all improve quality of the game product. Prototyping helps game designers to validate ideas and concepts, whereas software testing helps developers to detect errors and bugs in codes. Usually, prototyping and software testing are conducted frequently by internal members of the development team, i.e. designers, developers, and artists. Play testing is a process […]

How has playtesting affected/improved our game?

What have we iterated using playtesting?
We used our first playtesting to inform us of things that we might not have thought of, rather than things that we already knew did not work or needed more development.
One of the questions that we had asked the playtesters was:What was your least favourite moment or interaction?And these were some of the answers:

Sometimes the controls felt a bit unresponsive
No indication of being hit, too easy to beat
Being overwhelmed by enemies that you can’t really […]

The effects of playtesting – 5SD064 HANNA AHO LIND

Hello once again dear classmates.
Another week has passed and we all look forward to leaving this course behind. But if there is something especially fun to rememeber from this course it is the two playtesting sessions we have had.
During the playtests we got to play the others games, but also get valuable feedback from both teachers and other students.
After playing our game they were asked to fill out a survey, with prepared questions which we wanted answers of. But we […]

MVP, Play-Testing and Mechanix

Playtesting has impacted our development process in different ways and has stressed the importance of building towards a MVP.
For the playtesting sessions, we had set up a computer with our game, Umibozu, and after playing the game a survey followed. Naturally, we already had some idea of what the players were going to point out but many things can still be learned from it. For instance, a lot can also be learned from the player does while playing the game, […]

2018.03.08 – Playtesting Aesthetics V.S. Narrative Design and 3rd-party I.P.

Game concept overview
Our team had chosen a concept titled “You May Kiss the Bride” where the character got cold feet the day before the wedding. The player would then take over the commitment-phobic character and be thrown into a a nightmare. There s/he is trying to escape the commitment they were about to undertake with their significant other by running away from it just before they did their vows and making their way to the church’s exit while fighting their […]