So earlier this week (Monday 13/2) we had an Alpha playtesting workshop. Were all groups showed off to the other teams and teachers what has been made so far in the development.
During that workshop I sat as an observer to take notes and feedback about our game from the other students. What they liked about it and what they dislike and any other comments they would have.
We didn’t have a lot of sprites and mostly placeholders for the different assets. As we have made focus on the aesthetic of mystery that the game should convey. So, the focus had been on the fog in the game which got really good feedback from the testers. Also, because we haven’t really decided how everything should look yet, due to not knowing what the most fun way to play the game is yet, and to not give the artist work that’s not used in the end. So, the test was focused on the playing-feel rather then the visuals for the moment.
We chose to go for an ‘tell nothing to the tester’-way with our playtest. Were the tester just sat down at the computer and moved around in the game and tried to explore and feel out the game without any instructions, even without telling them how to control the game. We did this to see how intuitive our design was and how well different design elements was told to the player. Like what buttons they tried out and what they thought of the different small elements that existed in-game right now.
As we had lot of placeholder’s people were confused about some of the games assets, for example the light cone was at that moment shaped as a shark. For the coder this did not matter, as he saw the function was there. And then it hadn’t been updated in time for the playtest. So that confused players to what it was and what it did. It is now implemented and should give better feedback to the player at the next playtest.
As we did not yet have enemies or a level to traverse in the game felt boring to most testers as they didn’t have anything to do yet in the game. Which in a way proved positive, because then they tried the mechanics of the game out to a much more then just trying to complete a level in the game. So I would take this with me for future test that having something really confide will make testers more incline to break and feel the game out on a mechanics level rather than a game to beat.
In the picture in the top right corner we see some of the notes we took during the workshop. As well as some map/level ideas I have sketched on.
To the left we see my little notebook, something I try to have with me most of the time. You never know when you will have that good idea. And you NEED to write them down, as you won’t remember it, trust me.
And to the bottom right we see where I sit and write this, and with the material as referance for this blog entry.
Game Design 
Is it clear what is done? Yes, you have clearly conveyed that you had a play-testing session where your gathered feedback. Is it clear how? To a lesser degree yes, the circumstances regarding how the play-testing was carried out is explained. Is it clear why? Yes, to gather feedback but perhaps not motivated very well, you could go into more detail on this. Is the post valuable? in my opinion not exactly, but that might just be because i value motivating and explaining more on the why part higher than is necessary. Can the post be improved? definitely, there are spelling errors, odd sentence structure and a word used that makes absolutely no sense in the context. On the other hand i do think your post contains everything necessary to cover the three pointers (what how why) well. But since the above mentioned errors contribute to conveying them clearly it can be really hard to tell. Do some spellchecking and try reading your own post out aloud before posting next time and you should be good 🙂
Also don’t forget to tag your post with 5SD064.
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