Week #5 PlayTesting
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On three different occasions we have had our game play tested by the masses of Game Design 1 as well as the amount of play testing I have done myself for our game. Having people play test the game you’re creating is a rewarding experience in general, if you look at it positively it is a win-win situation. Either they play the game and like the work you are doing, hate it and give lots of feedback, or are somewhere between that spectrum. AS the programmer/creator of my game I make it so that it will appeal to me mechanically and play the way I prefer so having other non-biased opinions and feedback on my game is super important to my general production cycle. Through play testing our game has changed moderately, this is partially due to the fact that we never had much to show level design wise and mostly only had a little play ground where people could play and experience our mechanics and interactions between player and enemy. The largest problem being that we never had a real level designed for our testers which I think is a huge miscalculation on our part when it comes to wanting good feedback for our game.  Most of the feedback we have received has been extremely helpful in constructing our final product as well as cleaning up features and functions that were our dear darlings, but weren’t good enough for the game as we thought they would be. After any play test session I would review the list of pros and cons of our game which has helped me net perception on what can be improved, changed, or expanded upon, the only issue being that some feedback isn’t very good by which I mean that its neither constructive nor nonconstructive and is simply neutral. I think our play testing sessions would be infinitely more valuable if we had more to show and experience, and that is definitely a lesson I want to carry on through into our next course for the Arcade Game as it will be much more important as the Arcade Game will be riskier.
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