Playtesting – A Method of Reflection
This week we have been executing a playtest with our fellow peers in the Game Design course in hopes of getting an outside perspective on our game. As we now have an Alpha build, we wanted some insight into the controls and the user friendliness of it.
Our method was simple. We set out a computer running our game, we had one person documenting the behaviors the witnessed from the player and one person asking them questions afterwards. The analyzer looked after the following signs;
- Were they frustrated by anything?
- Were they bored by anything?
- Did they grasp the controls naturally?
And anything other behavior that stood out too them. The questions asked afterwards were in the same spirit. With the added question of;
- Did you enjoy the dash mechanic?
Seeing as that was a part of the game we were uncertain about, we used this opportunity to get some new thoughts on the subject.
Note: The testers themselves were 8 females and 18 males, with the age-span of 19-30, all university students studying game design.
The results were later collected and analyzed, and we noticed a pattern in their frustration. Three things kept coming back as the major negative feedbacks;
- They struggled a bit with heavier enemies (especially the second one).
- Some didn’t grasp the concept of Aether and therefore couldn’t utilize the Aether abilities.
- Most didn’t initially understand that the powerup was a good thing and not an enemy.
- Almost no one used the dash.
Because we could now see some blatant flaws in our game, we discussed what might be the cause of these problems and how we could fix it. Since every point took a good deal of work to fix -and that means a lot of text to write- I will not reveal our conclusions today. And I suppose they do not matter right now anyway. What matters is that our playtest was successful. We got some very important information from it and I can say with confidence that the game is better now because of it. Method recommended 😊
Lots of Love
// Maya
LocalScrub - Maya Sidén 
Hello Maya!
I really liked this post actually. You described in a very clear way what you have done during this week.
And the way you described it was very easy to read. I like how you made small bullets points of what you were looking for during the test and what kind of questions you asked the players. It made it easy to understand what you were meaning and how you made it.
The results in the end that tells me what you learn during the test is very clear as well, so it is easy to say “why” you did it.
Also, the results in the end shows the importance of the game testing, it is always interesting to see another point of view, you get to see some flaws in the game which you never even considered to be there while making the game.
So yes, I find this post very valuable, and I don’t think there is anything I would change in the way you wrote the post either!
Keep up the good work Maya! 🙂
/ Simon Ågren
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