Hosting Successful Play Testing Sessions for Indie Games
Tags: gamedev
Published: 2020-04-04 01:55:46

I have been working as a team lead on an indie game for quite some time now, and have been working to implement some big quality of life changes and additional gameplay. The game in question, Kookie Kwest (trailer link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVYTaxtb02c) started off as a project in a course at the University of Toronto, Introduction to Video Game Design. It is a local competitive platformer game that supports from two to four players, where each player plays as a different colored knight and races to the top of a castle to collect a cookie (dubbed Kookie in the game). 

The team consists of 21 members, all experienced in different fields of game development. We have sub teams focusing on development, game art, animation, and audio, all core aspects of the final game. Despite this large number of individuals contributing to our final product, this is still not enough! We still require play testers, typically unbiased individuals who will provide constructive criticism and critiques of your game. Play testing is extremely crucial to determine what areas your game performs well in, and where it falls short.

Throughout the development process, from the very first prototype of the game, to the version that we handed in as the final submission for the course, we have been working hard to gather as much feedback from as many people as we could. During these play testing sessions, we quickly learned what worked well during a play test, and what did not. In this post, I will be discussing a couple of dos and don’ts that I have collected over the course of the eight months developing this game.

### Dos: 

#### Create a survey.

Creating a quick survey for your play testers is one of the easiest ways to get feedback after a play testing session. Questions to include are scaled questions and multiple choice questions. An example of a scaled question is asking a user to rate the difficulty of the game on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being too easy and 10 being too hard. These types of questions limit the amount the play tester will need to write. Avoid bombarding the testers with too much text, as this can result in responses that are completed with little effort. Include a comments section at the end of the survey where the user can give any additional feedback that your survey did not address.

####Create an in game tutorial.

Creating a tutorial at the beginning of the game can help the player understand what their objective is and learn the controls of your game. This is to test whether or not your tutorial on its own is sufficient without you having to explain to the users what to do. This is important as you will not be physically there to explain your game and the controls to every user upon the launch of your game!

#### Have regular play tests.
Even if your features are not all completed and perfect, it is important to host regular play testing sessions to identify big bugs and critical issues with your game early on that you may not have noticed. This will allow you to know where to allocate your time. For example, Kookie Kwest had a major platforming issue where the player would get stuck on surfaces. This was caught by many play testers early on. We dedicated two weeks to fixing this issue and pushed back our other tasks, as we saw this was more important. This will also help you reassess your goals and whether or not your game is meeting these goals. 

#### Ask users to think aloud. 

During the play testing session, ask your play testers to think aloud as they are playing. This will allow you to understand the thought process of the player as they are going through your game. This is important as users may not remember why they did something or made a certain decision in the game after the play test session is over.

#### Most importantly… Take notes during the play test session!

Take notes of what the players are confused about, what worked well, and what did not work. This will help later on when reviewing what changes should be prioritized (and also if you have poor memory).

### Don’ts: 

#### Do not point out bugs prior to the play test.
Even if you are aware a bug exists in your game, do not mention it to the play testers until after the play test session is complete. Telling the player about the bug before they begin to play could cause them to hyper fixate on the bug and fail to notice other things about your game. Instead, ask the user if they noticed the bug after the play testing session.

#### Do not pick biased play testers (or try not to).

Ideally, you should play test with people who you may be unfamiliar with, as this can reduce the amount of bias in their feedback. For example, your friends and family may feel inclined to give your game a positive review due to your relationship. Anonymous surveys may be able to mitigate this issue if you are hosting a play test session with enough testers. Ensure confidentiality within your play testers. 

I hope this post was helpful in providing some insight into how to host a successful play testing session. I am open to answering any questions if you have any, and if you’d like to join as one of our play testers, please let me know!