Game Design journal 5
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Mikael Ferroukhi Date 08/03/18
During the production of my game Umibozu, me and my team has been through some heavy brainstorming sessions where we would decide what are the best ideas and solutions we can find to make our game the most enjoyable and close to his original aesthetic, all of this while keeping in mind our capacity and limitations to produce code and art. The problem is that when you stay for too long with a group of 6 people and that neither you nor the other members get a breath of “fresh air” concerning the aspect of the game (gameplay, art style, etc..) from someone else that is completely out from the production process of the game, it is easy for us to all agree on the fact that the game works as it is right now and that everything is going just fine. The problem is that right after the first playtesting session, we started to realize the potential of ideas that we never implemented and the weaknesses of certain mechanics of our game. People would try our game and say : “what do you use that for? I don’t see why this exist!”, and that is true! This really makes you realize how easy it is to become blind to the imperfection of your own game, as if because you made it, everybody should understand how it works, which is obviously not true. Added to that being able to see what has been made by other teams, sometimes working on Umibozu as well, and to see what elegant solution they managed to find in order to make their game shine with as little amount of work as possible truly gets you wondering about if the way you have been working with your team was the most efficient one. From there we understood that we needed to have a better retrospection on the work that will be made and that also we should stop trying to aim low, but rather aim as high as we can and try our best to get everything done properly. We all started to produce more content, I personally started to draw more and more asset for the team, and all of this has been made possible thanks to the playtesting sessions that opened our eyes.
Between the first playtesting session and the moment I am writing this blog, there has been a second playtesting session. This time again it has played a role of eye opener: even when we try our best to be objective about our game and to really think about if what we do make sense, nothing will ever be as effective as someone out of the group coming and testing the game, giving raw feedback and making you aware of the flaws of your game. What is also interesting is trying the game of others, I’ve already talked about the fact that watching game can give you ideas but when playing them, you actually see what is good or wrong with them and this actually help you to understand what does or doesn’t work in games, making you more aware of the mistakes not to make, and prevent them in your game. To conclude this all I will say that playtesting session helped both as a tool to understand better what isn’t working with my game, thanks to the comments of the testers, but also as a place where you can discover and analyze other game and try to find inspiration in their work while also experiencing what flaws they contain by playing them, making you aware of mistakes not to repeat in your own game.
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