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[mirosurabu]

Yeah, I guess I got wrong terms. Sorry about that.

But isn't possible for a single person to learn how to test (by himself) how given game is playing? Considering that playtesting helps you to learn how players interact with particular gameplay, it may not be necessary to repeat playtesting over and over again for a same design concept?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

It's hard to watch yourself playing a game for many reasons, it's almost too obvious to state them.

Seriously, I'm not sure why people think that they don't need playtesters or can do without them, and try to figure out ways to get around having them. They're just harming their game drastically that way. I mean, look at all the people saying positive stuff about in-person playtesting, they know how valuable it is, isn't that enough to give you pause in trying to avoid the process, or to make due with as little of it as possible?

It's like, if you love your game, you want it to be the best it can be, why shouldn't you want to watch people play it in person, and invite them over to play it in front of you? It couldn't hurt, and with all the people saying positive stuff about how much they improved their game when they did it, there's good reason to try it out.

[Hayden Scott-Baron]

Great advice being shared here. I'm a pro, and it correlates with experiences with testers... and we get the more extreme example. Whenever a tester is proactive in making suggestions (because they are wannabe games designers) it is more often a nuisance than a help. Some go as far as to skirt around the problem to focus more time on their 'idea' for the game.

...and yes, more often than not, 'removing' rather than 'adding' solves a problem.

I had a great in-person experience recently when making a game for Ludum Dare. It had player oriented vehicle controls, much like 'Micro Machines', and I watched a friend of mine come over and she wasn't able to control it at all.  I immediately decided to change the camera to follow the player, Katamari style, and people enjoyed the game a lot more after that.

[mirosurabu]

It's like, if you love your game, you want it to be the best it can be, why shouldn't you want to watch people play it in person, and invite them over to play it in front of you? It couldn't hurt, and with all the people saying positive stuff about how much they improved their game when they did it, there's good reason to try it out.

That is so true. As long as you don't pay for playtesting there is no chance it will hurt you.

Personally, I use offline players to test how my demos work (in fact, I do it only because I am sometimes too lazy to play my game for a longer time and search for unpredicted outcomes). I once had a chance to watch around 30 people playing my simulation demo (when I was in middle school), but I didn't really get surprised at all. Everything came out as predicted. There were minor glitches I didn't encounter and that's all.

Don't get me wrong - I am not discrediting playtesting. I am just a little bit concerned about people implementing popular methods only because they are popular, not because they find it useful. Everyone is using neural networks for their game AI today. Everyone is learning DirectX today and everyone is discrediting simpler alternatives like Allegro, SDL, and even Game Maker. Everyone wants to do some 3D stuff. And so on.

[Pyrofyr]

A fair amount of people who play games also make them, not the majority, but some.

In annnnny case, not every suggestion should be tossed to the side, sometimes you just might have not thought about, also you could lose a valuable playtester by ignoring them altogether on it. You're better off explaining why or why not this should be in the game.

[Hayden Scott-Baron]

A fair amount of people who play games also make them, not the majority, but some.

In annnnny case, not every suggestion should be tossed to the side, sometimes you just might have not thought about, also you could lose a valuable playtester by ignoring them altogether on it. You're better off explaining why or why not this should be in the game.

True, but a large pinch of salt (a fistful, perhaps) is necessary when dealing with such things, and it's important that you understand the reason for the suggestion, or at least define a new reason for its inclusion, and consider the alternatives to achieve that same result.

All game suggestions need to go through a lot of consideration from you, just as your own ideas should also go through a long process.

The main focus is always to focus on identifying the problem.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I don't think this method of playtesting is that popular at all, from what I see only a tiny percent (probably fewer than 1%) of indie games actually use a significant number of real-live playtesters (as opposed to online testing on messageboards) before they're released, and the ones that do benefit from it; so it's not about promoting something that's popular, it's about promoting something that almost nobody does.

(As an aside, Game Maker does use DirectX, and I believe Allegro uses it too?)

[mirosurabu]

I agree it's not popular among indie developers yet, certainly not popular among freeware indie developers, but it's popular among commercial mainstream developers (probably reasonably) and that's one reason why people may try it and wrongly attribute any improvement to playtesting. As a skeptic I always tend to be careful about making conclusion whether something was of real use or not.

Not really sure whether allegro uses DirectX or OpenGL API for windows platforms, but the point is that you don't need to learn DirectX or OpenGL API if you want to learn Game Maker, Allegro or SDL.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Possible, I don't know anything about how mainstream games are made. I think they use 'focus groups' more than what I describe, though? I.e. I imagine (this may be off-base) they let people play their games and then ask them to fill out questionnaires, rather than just have the developers watch people play directly.

[mirosurabu]

Large research groups are common among high-budget games, but as far as I could understand mainstream game designers do tend to watch people playing their prototypes/games in earlier phase of development.

[Hayden Scott-Baron]

Possible, I don't know anything about how mainstream games are made. I think they use 'focus groups' more than what I describe, though? I.e. I imagine (this may be off-base) they let people play their games and then ask them to fill out questionnaires, rather than just have the developers watch people play directly.

Actually, developers often get opportunity to observe play sessions directly, and sometimes videos are kept of how people respond. Depends on the scope of the focus group really. 


On the subject of playtesting, one thing I really want to introduce into all my games is some sort of detailed log of play. It will describe how much time was spent on each section, at what points when focus was lost (no input for a while) and for how long, and even logging the route through the level by recording the position every few seconds.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Hm, possible, I've no idea. I don't really know anybody in the mainstream games industry. Regardless, popularity of it wasn't why I was saying it's a good idea, I think it's a good idea because it works for me and for other indie developers who have tried it. If the mainstream industry does something similar, great.

[Hayden Scott-Baron]

...but then there's the whole drama of designers ignoring the input from the rest of the team! o_o

[brog]

If your game does not do anything new, if it is a clone of an existing game, perhaps you will not see any improvement from direct playtesting because everything was already tested by developers of that game.
When you are introducing to players some new mechanic, playtest!  Things that seem completely intuitive to the designer are often not intuitive to players and must be elucidated if you want people to be able to pick up your game and play without getting lost.
A lot of players will give up on a game if they get lost and confused.  Especially if it is freeware or a demo, and especially if it is an unknown indie game and not something that they know must be good because the advertising said so.  There is so much crap around that people usually have their shit filters turned up pretty high when trying something obscure, so it's very important to keep things clear and fun to suck them in while also having something new to get their interest.  The problem is balancing novelty with clarity, which can only be done by knowing what goes on inside the heads of players as they play, which is much much easier in a live playtest.

[mirosurabu]

If your game does not do anything new, if it is a clone of an existing game, perhaps you will not see any improvement from direct playtesting because everything was already tested by developers of that game.
When you are introducing to players some new mechanic, playtest!

I think that was my whole point.

[BeskarKomrk]

I don't know how other developers do it, but Bungie watches individual people play the game to get their reactions. They then spend hours talking about these playtests, so it's obviously important to them. All this stuff is from the Halo 3 Legendary DVD, in case you were wondering.