Collecting feedback
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With both playtesting sessions being underway, I thought it would be a good idea to dedicate this post towards explaining how we went about gathering said feedback, and why it is so important to do so. But first let me briefly describe the process of our playtesting. We had 4 laptops on a table, two of which were running the game. This way two people could play our game at once. After testing the game for a while (usually less than 5 minutes) the player would move to a second computer where they could fill out a survey, answering questions regarding their experience of playing the game. For the actual survey, we used different services for the two playtesting sessions. For the first one, we used a service called surveymonkey, which is great for creating online surveys, but it didn’t work all that great when you needed to collect answers in person, since you could only submit one answer per browser. Ultimately, we found a way around this, but for the second playtesting session, we decided to use google forms instead since it worked better for our purpose. I think that using surveys is the best way to collect feedback, since people can fill it in in their own time, and they don’t have to feel guilty about giving negative feedback, since it is all done anonymously. Letting people test what you have created and listening to feedback is vital when working on a project like this, since it is really easy to get blind to flaws when you are invested in a project. It is also useful to see how clearly controls and instructions are communicated to someone who is new to the game, since that is another thing that is easily forgotten. Overall we got some really useful feedback that we need to take into account when moving forward. /Lucas Ingvarsson
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Prior to each of our biggest milestones, the Alpha and the Beta, we have been hosting playtesting sessions. During these sessions, we as students have the opportunity to test our classmate’s games, and even more importantly, have them testing our games. This is a golden opportunity to gather feedback from our target audience, so that we can set the scope for the next milestone.