Playtesting and how Sirens rose from exhaustion
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When playtesting, having a clear focus and idea about what you want to test is vital. Our beta playtesting was focused in one aspect of the game: Powerups.
We couldn’t come to a conclusion of what would be best for the game, and in consequence to the player: Power-up as instant pickups, or power-ups as innate abilities that you could activate with the use of energy. Making a decision about this was important, as the design of animations and assets depended heavily on what kind of power-up we wanted to show the player and how it would manifest. Even If we evaluated the pros and cons of the two options, we still didn’t get to a conclusion. So, we playtested both versions. Pros and consPower-ups as pickups are easy for the player to process; pick it up and be more powerful for a short amount of time. So basically, there’s no aspect of it you need to worry about, feels like a free reward. On the other hand, there’s no way to save it for later, for a moment when you might need it better. There is no thinking, no managing, no strategy. Only reward. Power-ups as innate abilities give you the option to manage your energy carefully, think strategically when to use it or when not to if you need the energy, for example, to repair your shield. Unfortunately, that might drive the player insane. Between waves and waves of shooters, kamikazes destroying your shield, repairing, predicting patterns, etc, might have been overwhelming for the player. We set up two computers, each with a different version of the game and a single form afterwards. Every person was to play both versions. We observed that most people didn’t notice the differences when playing the game less than 3 times. Not knowing the game beforehand, differences weren’t very obvious, so getting players that know the game to playtest different mechanics should be something to consider in the future. Even if you playtesting is focused, you will always receive feedback about many other things in the game, which is great for the general development. We want to know everything that goes through the mind of everyone who plays the game, only to make it better!  Give us your thoughts, playtesters! Mwaha!
It is true, however, that feedback on the alpha testing was too focused on features and visuals that we were not supposed to be there, nor required, which reduced the usefulness of some comments, as we already knew those things were missing. Conlusion-ishAfter analysing feedback, it was still hard for us to come to a conclusion. The problem was that we didn’t define a target audience when redesigning the concept document, so we couldn’t really know what kind of player we wanted our game to be for. We also didn’t have a profile of our playtesters, so that made more difficult to know what kind of player we were approaching to. The group was divided at this point; half of us said “make it more about reward, with some challenge” and half of us said “If you think it’s hard, get better” referring to the players. And then…a member of the team had a brilliant idea that brought us to a middle ground. We were so exhausted that week that we couldn’t see the solution, which became amazingly simple and obvious when presented. SolutionFree temporal pickups that enhance your actual capabilities (bigger shield, better beam, etc) that you get as rewards sometimes when defeating enemies, and innate abilities like the surge wave as usable options! (consuming energy). We were initially having everything either as a pickup or as innate ability. The exhaustion had blinded us.  A super exhausted Sirin, like us, and an Alkonost.
So, if you want to see and test our Work in Progress (still needs some balancing and improvements) feel free to do so and give us some feedback! Playtest here!Sorry for the mega-ugly link. Thank you for your time, Miss or Mister!
Images Sources: Playesting session Tiantongxu blog
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