How has playtesting affected the development of Umibōzu?
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Playtesting is definitely one of the most important components when developing a game. Not only does playtesting provide confirmation whether or not standards or goals are being met, it also exposes the developers to different insights and perspectives that would end up unheard otherwise. In the following blog entry, I will talk about how playtesting has affected the development of our game, Umibōzu. How did we approach the playtests?Whenever you conduct a playtest, you have to previously think about what you actually want to test or get feedback on. While asking for a general impression or thoughts about your content might also provide valuable results, it often does not live up to its fullest opportunities. Contrary to that, asking for too specific features might manipulate the testers and hence provide data of inaccurate representation. We took the implications of both ends of the spectrum into consideration while creating a feedback form for the alpha and beta playtests, which were hosted on campus amongst the first-year game design students.
Alpha playtest (was actually pre-alpha)Admittedly we didn’t have much content back at the pre-alpha playtest, but we internally agreed to to aim for getting the best feedback possible for the core components that we have had. At that time, our most advanced features were the movement of the boat and the environment (water and fog) design. Even thought we really didn’t had any expectations, we actually got a lot of constructive feedback and praise for the assets that we have had, mostly for my environment design, which made me really happy and has further motivated me to improve and work on the game, seeing that our work was going in the right direction. We also asked for first impressions as well as general negative and positive aspects of the game, so obviously troll responses like “thinking emoji” or “very alpha 4head” were inevitable. Nonetheless, the pre-alpha playtest exposed us to problems and issues that we have not thought about as a group. Apparently, a lot of people felt a sense of dizziness which was a concerning sign and an issue that demands to be looked into as soon as possible. Beta playtest (was actually pre-beta)The beta playtest took place two weeks after the alpha playtest and a whole week before the actual beta deadline. Unfortunately, and due to technical issues, we were not able to set up a playtest for our game. Nonetheless the beta playtest ended up being a valuable experience, since it gave us the opportunity to fully experience the other side of the coin being completely focused on testing other peoples’ games and in return learn a lot about our own game. For once it seemed to be very beneficial that a lot of groups have chosen the Umibozu concept. I personally had a great time seeing how other people interpreted the concept, in what aspects our game shines in comparison and what issues may occur down the road in our game that were already visible in other interpretations. So.. how has playtesting affected the development of Umibozu?In the end the playtests ended up being a valuable experience – in one way or the other. Without the alpha playtest, we would have never known that our game causes unwanted dizziness. Furthermore, it felt good to receive confirmation that we were on a good way to convey the aesthetic we were striving for, which boosted the team morale and the motivation to continuously try to improve what we already have. While it truly is unfortunate that we could not gather more feedback during the beta playtest, we still learned a lot by breaking down and analyzing other games and in the end translating the results to our own project. Regarding the final deadline, which is in exactly a week, playtesting is still very important and one of the top priorities of the designer in our small group. On top of that, our project manager is constantly reaching out to other people to get different perspectives about our game, which immensely helps us while iterating through ideas and artifacts. Thank you for your time reading this blog entry, especially if you are not obliged to comment on it Until next week! //Alexander Sinn  |
