Play-testing
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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 in case the testers have questions, but we are encouraged not to explain the game in too much details to the tester in order for them to give genuine feedback. The feedback is collected after the testers try the game, usually through an online survey but I have witnessed other teams asking verbal questions and either recording or writing down the answers. The members who are not responsible for guiding testers are free to explore other teams games, and in most groups the members took turns so that everyone could try out the other games. At the first play-test all games were in Alpha condition and therefore there was much to be improved, however, it was still possible to get a feeling for which games were fun and which games needed more fundamental changes. In our case many testers seemed to enjoy the gameplay, and most of the critique was in relation to the GUI. For example, the health bar which I myself had created was not necessarily interpreted as health. Another problem was that the shield pickup we had implemented was presumed to be hostile according to many players. This was of course very useful feedback. When designing the shield pickup we had designed it to be coherent with the shield (which is pink <3), but many players thought the color to be a shade of red which by semiotics rules implies danger to many people. The health bar was also designed to be coherent with the light steampunk feel to the game, which is why I made it look like light bulbs that go from lit to unlit when the player looses health. after receiving this critique I changed the color of the light bulbs to red to remind players of hearts, a common symbol to use for health bars in many games. The color change also made it easier to distinguish between a lit and unlit light bulb.
the different versions of light bulbs, from left to right original lit, original unlit, updated lit and updated unlit For the second play-test I was prepared for similar critique, mainly pointers to what GUI should be polished. However, when our teacher Mika finally got to playing our game it was like getting a bucket of ice water over me. I genuinely feel like the critique was valid though so I am not trying to throw shade at anyone, I simply got a reality check hehe. I was responsible for our station at the moment so I personally received the critique and wrote it down in my notes. (For students critique we relied on an online survey). Most of the pointers Mika had for our game I could immediately agree with and I forwarded the critique to my group. The for me most logical critique was the position of the speed boost button. In our game you control the player avatar with the WASD-keys and you use the SHIFT-key to activate the speed boost function. When I tried this myself I had problems with it but I just assumed that I was a worse player than my team mates. When I heard it from Mika I got validation for my own issues with the function, but when I told my team the immediate reaction was surprise. I am not a PC gamer myself but it turns out that a lot of PC games use the SHIFT-key for speed boosts and my team mates were all very used to these controls. After thinking about it though I believe they realized that keeping the speed boost on the SHIFT-key makes more sense if you have many other functions already implemented on other keys, and it limits the game to be enjoyable only to those who are already used to these specific controls. In the end we decided to change the position of the speed boost to the SPACE-key instead. All in all I think the play-testing has been very useful to our team. For me personally it gave me a fresh look at the design decisions I had made along the way, and to many of my team mates I think it opened their eyes to how players who are unused to PC controls will experience the game. Along with what I have mentioned before we also realized that we needed to balance the game better, our group had become very good at playing our game and didn’t find it very challenging, but this was not true for new players. (We had been warned that this might happen but it is still easy to become blind to flaws at home). The experience with play-testing has really opened my eyes as to what a fresh pair of eyes can bring to a finished product and I think the feedback you get is to be taken seriously. Because we have listened to the voices of our testers I feel even more confident in our product… but I am really looking forward to be finished with it and continue on to the next project. That’s all for this week. Biiiiiiiiiiiie!!!!!  |
