How do you playtest?

[Evan Burchard]

After your game is playable and working, how do you make sure it's fun?  Do you bring other people into the process early or wait till the end?  A related question, before the game is actually playable enough for playtesting to be possible, do you show artwork to anyone for feedback?

 

I find that when I don't playtest, the games end up being a good challenge for me, but too hard for someone who isn't living in the game as it's being built. 

[-AAG-]

At the Poppenkast we have a daily development thread where we share everything from ideas, mock-ups, screen shots, early demos and so forth and so on. It is a great way to get feedback early on the development stages which can translate into motivation to keep going (or not) and a good way to keep the game showcase 'clean'.

 

I wonder why we don't have one of these threads around here...?

 

About play testing, I try not to show stuff until I think is done, unless is a side project or at the Poppenkast where is private.

[remvst]

About the difficulty, yeah I also have to lower it and make it really easy for me, or it will be too hard for the players.

 

And how to make a game fun? Well I remember showing a very early version of a game to some online friends, saying that I would probably give it up because it wasn't fun enough. They said it was very good and spent much time on it, trying to beat each other's score, so I continued the development. Turned out it became my most successful game(by far).

 

And sometimes, you just have to take some risks to make a game. The last game I released had a poor reception, but at least I tried, and I made a game that was different from the other ones.