🔨 About Playtesting 🔨
Table of Contents
Key Takeaways
- Balance your time between playtesting and development.
- Cater playtesting questions to produce the most useful feedback.
Playtesting Plan
Playtesting was at the core of our production timeline. Our weekly schedule was centered around preparing for playtesting, conducting sessions, and reviewing playtest feedback.
We made playtesting a priority for multiple reasons:
- 2D platformers benefit from lots of feedback and iteration to create a fun and satisfying experience.
- The Leaf Dash as a core ability is unique among 2D platformers and we wanted as much opportunity for feedback and iteration as possible.
- We wanted to guarantee that we could use external feedback to follow the fun instead of just internal findings.
Schedule
Our weekly schedule generally was as follows:
- Monday - Wednesday:
- Prepare a playtesting build with new features, assets, and tweaks
- Thursday:
- Conduct playtesting sessions with newest build
- Compile playtesting feedback and notes into data for review
- Fridays:
- Present findings to full team in weekly meeting
- Hold team discussion on next steps based on findings
Playtesting Pros and Cons
Our playtesting plan successfully helped guide our game design process. However, it was not without its difficulties. The major issues we faced are outlined below.
One Week Turnaround
Playtesting every week was a worthwhile investment but came with some unexpected downsides. The pros and cons are outlined below.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Ensured we had a playable build every week | Caused rushed additions and increased technical debt |
| Allowed us to easily course-correct through immediate feedback on changes and additions | Left little time to curate questions for the following week |
| More stress and pressure on the team | |
| Forced us to pick between fixing issues or adding new features |
Data Collection
Our playtesting methods consisted of collecting data through observation and holding a discussion at the end to ask questions and gain additional insight. The pros and cons are described below.
| Pros | Con |
|---|---|
| Let us observe genuine player behavior | Less effective with playtesters who were not talkative |
| Provided valuable qualitative feedback and suggestions |
Compiling Raw Data
We compiled our playtesting data by transcribing our qualitative notes into quantitative numbers and then producing general summaries of the key takeaways. In restrospect, there were quite a few cons to this.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Produces both qualitative and quantitative data | Numbers often ended up having little meaning |
| Compiling the data took time away from development |
Lesson 1: Balance your time between playtesting and development.
We underestimated what two hours devoted to playtesting represents in our project’s time frame. This meant that playtesting cut into a more significant portion of development time than expected.
Our Playtesting Data
Despite all the above pros and cons, our playtesting methods resulted in valuable data that informed every area of the project and its design. The pros showed that playtesting was worthwhile and the cons illustrate how we could do it better in the future.
Here is a collection of our playtesting data summaries:
Lesson 2: Cater playtesting questions to produce the most useful feedback.
In the discussion segments of playtesting, we asked open-ended questions that gave us specific feedback about where the game felt fun and where it felt clunky. Asking qualitative questions gave us actionable feedback that we used throughout all of our design iteration process. Because every game is different, knowing what kind of questions to ask will help you iterate in the long run.
Playtesting Bible
Want to see even more about playtesting? Check out the Playtesting Bible below for all the details.
Our Playtesters
We are so grateful for all those who signed up and playtested for us! Check out the complete list here.