The play test is one of the most important parts of game design
But it's also one of the hardest things to do well
There's a lot more to getting useful data out of your players than simply sitting them down in front of your game, so today
We're going to talk about play testing now this isn't the same as the bug testing that you would do if you're a professional tester
I'm talking [about] the user feedback type of play test that designers do to help us understand the real quality of our games
Unfortunately many young designers seem hesitant to go out and play test
They often feel like their works not ready to show yet
Or that people just won't get it [or] the play testers are only going to give them feedback
They already know or maybe it's just that showing your work to other peoples really tough
It's like reading them your poetry or playing them a song you wrote by conducting a play test
You're kind of putting [yourself] out there the first major challenge in a designer's career is to overcome this shyness to fully invest yourself in
Your work without getting your pride tangled up in it at play test people will say negative [things] about your design
They will tell you all sorts of things you already know should be in your game
But that the team just hasn't gotten to yet
Or you simply don't have the budget to do but it's important that you don't reject any of this feedback
Don't get defensive or try to explain to the player
What will eventually be in the game?
Just embrace it
All Openly write it all down and really listen because all of this information has uses and you have no need to justify yourself to
Anyone your only job is to put out a good game and the only way to do that is with Feedback
so once you've steeled yourself for all the
Criticism to come the second thing to know about play testing is that it is never too [early] to do it as soon as you
Have a prototype [as] soon as you have squares moving around on the screen
You can test in fact James will often run tests
Well before he's even got anything digital to work with creating a prototype out of a deck of cards
Or even getting a bunch of people to run [around] a room can yield valuable data many times design students will tell them when they?
Go to play test early in the dev cycle that all anyone tells them are things they already know
But that just means they aren't looking at all the data as a designer you have to observe everything if all you've taken down are
Just the words your testers said you haven't looked closely enough
The order that people give their feedback in is almost as important as what they're [actually] saying it tells you
What's most important to them and where in your experience they encounter these issues and make sure to listen closely?
You're going to be naturally biased about your game
you have a set of things that you know are wrong with the game that are on your to-do [list] to fix so when a
Tester describes something similar to a problem you already know [about]. It's remarkably easy to subconsciously think oh yeah
Yeah, I know about that one already taking care of it
No problem when they actually might have been talking about a different entirely
Additionally early testing gives you data that you're going to need for later each time you test you're going to see if the adjustments you
Made to the game made the issue you encountered better or worse to do this you need as many data points as possible
[the] longer your trend line the more in-depth your understanding will be and one final word about early testing you may be wrong about your
game
Embrace that you may well find that what you thought was the core engagement of your work wasn't what [people] actually found engaging?
Don't reject that that is the most valuable data you can get and as anyone
Who's built a game will tell you the earlier you make changes large or small the cheaper it is to make them don't cost everyone
Else on your team weeks of work. Just because you were afraid to play [tests] early all right now
Let's go over a few quick and dirty rules of how to test first try and [talk] to your players as little as possible
Anything you say to them biases them and prevents you from getting good data?
You may feel the need to explain your game before starting
But resist that urge let them take a crack at it before you tell them what they should be doing
This will allow [you] to observe what they naturally want to do in your experience and gives you a better sense of where they get
Stuck or what needs to be explained once they've had a go or two then you can inform them and when observing them listen carefully
For when they vocalize [any] time your game draws and utterance from them a sigh a gasp a thoughtful
Hmm. You've either gone something right or something very wrong also try and see where they spend most of their time looking in your game
It'll give you deep clues into what they feel is important
And what data they felt like they had to spend most of the time?
Processing admittedly this can be a very hard one to do and you'll often have to resort to
Asking the player unless [you] can get all [hi-tech] and have a camera set [up] to record the session
Additionally create a test survey rather than trying to get everything from simply talking to your players afterward this will not only allow you to
Get data from a lot more people at once
It's also
Unbiased Data that can be cleanly turned into metrics if you give your play testers a one to ten scale question which I highly recommend
Doing it puts less of a burden on your play tester than making them write out whole paragraphs and it gives you an easy way
To know if you're making changes for the better in future tests just watch to [see] if the numbers trend upward or down just [be]
Sure to leave the play testers room for comments at the end - because that's also helpful when you do talk to your testers just
Be aware that as human beings we all have a tendency to jump to solutions rather than stating the underlying problem
So when a play tester offers you a solution like there aren't enough [power-ups] really dig in and try to establish one underlying problem
They're trying to solve cuz you'll often find it something else like my gun doesn't feel powerful enough which
May require a totally different solution than the one they offered
Lastly be aware that we're all hardwired to avoid suffering
So make sure you're testing in an environment where your tester feels, okay walking away from your game
If you lock them in a room or even have them in an environment where they feel?
Socially compelled to play they'll try to make the best of it
They'll try to get into your game and that'll deny you one of the most important Data points
You can get where your player gives up on your game, or walks away to do something else remember when you launch your game
You're not only going to be competing with all the other games out there
But with every book every movie every TV show
Even the internet itself so your game better be ready for it and if you don't have to worry about NDA's it can often be
Fun to grab Several of your other game making friends and test as a group that at least gives your players other options for what?
To do with their time before we wrap this up
Let's talk about who to test with test with everyone but know that the test results you get vary in value for example
You are the worst tester [of] your game. You're just too close to it
You're naturally going to test your own game a thousand times over the course of its creation, but that sort of testing only goes
so far
There's all sorts of things that you're going to get used to things that will become second nature to you that will seem totally
Alien to anyone picking up your game for the first time so you need other people
Oh and as a rule of thumb if you think the difficulty on your game is just about right
It's probably way too hard next family and friends second worst testers. They're biased
They can't help it next comes the hardcore hardcore players are often the most willing to test
But unless they're the only audience you're looking for and they [are] a niche [you] need to find other testers too as hardcore players
We simply have too much ingrained in us from the thousands of hours
We spent playing these things you're really looking for people without preconceptions or biases people who like games?
But aren't in any way invested in them strangers who owe nothing to you or better still know nothing about you?
So who makes the best tester well in my experience little kids they may not be your audience
But if they are you can always count on them to be open eager and 100% honest well, I hope that was useful
Good luck honing those games to Perfection. [we'll] see you next week