A few weeks ago, we hosted our first-ever playtest! Spoiler: it didn’t exactly go as planned, but it was a valuable learning experience for the team. Our aim was to get feedback on the core gameplay systems and see how intuitive things were for a fresh pair of eyes. This post will dive into the details of what went wrong, what went right, and why getting the right people to test your game is crucial.

We were eager to see how players would interact with the game, but due to some time restraints, we only had one tester. While we were initially disappointed, even a single test can provide valuable insights. Here’s what our tester had to say:

Playtest Feedback:

• Text readability: Our tester found the text hard to read, so we’ll be working on either enlarging it or adding a font adjustment option.
• Adjustable window size: Apparently, window size adjustment is something people expect (who knew?), so we’re going to make that an option in the final build.
• Closing the codex: It wasn’t clear how to exit the codex, so we’ll add a more intuitive way to close it - probably a visible “close” button.
• Talking to Elspeth: The process for starting a conversation with Elspeth wasn’t obvious. We’ll improve her interaction point so it’s easier to trigger dialogue.
• Tool functionality: The purpose of the various tools wasn’t immediately clear. We’ll add clearer tooltips and an introduction to their uses.
• Inventory visibility: Our tester wasn’t sure where to find the inventory. We’ll make this more prominent in the UI.
• Heart icon confusion: The heart icon was mistaken for the monster’s health rather than its happiness. Not sure if we’ll do anything about this.

While most of this feedback is pretty straightforward, covering things we’d planned to fix and refine in later builds anyway, it's still good to know that we’re on the right track. However, the tester did highlight some issues we’d missed in internal playtesting, mainly revolving around the games controls and UI. We’d taken for granted that our game’s controls were intuitive and easy to understand, but while watching the tester we quickly discovered that this was not the case. What’s clear is that we have to refine the user experience and improve the clarity of certain mechanics before bringing in more testers.

The Importance of Testing with the Right Audience

One of the biggest lessons from this play test was understanding how important it is to get the right type of tester for your game. Our play tester, while generous with their time and feedback, wasn’t a fan of the genre and dislikes reading lots of text. Our game is heavily narrative-driven, with a lot of dialogue and written content. Naturally, this mismatch in expectations meant that much of what makes our game shine wasn’t appreciated.

This experience highlighted that we need to find play testers who enjoy narrative-driven experiences, especially as reading and story are such crucial elements in our game. A different tester, who loves RPGs or story-based adventures, might have had a much more engaged experience.

If you’re developing a niche or genre-specific game, make sure to reach out to people who love that genre. You’ll get more relevant feedback and gain insights from players who enjoy the aspects you’re emphasizing. It’s okay if not everyone loves your game – what matters is finding those who will.

What’s Next?

We’re going to start by addressing the technical feedback. That means improving UI clarity, adding an adjustable window size, and making interactions with characters like Elspeth more intuitive. We may also consider making some of the dialogue optional, so that players who want to skip the story and dive right into the gameplay can do so a bit quicker.

Once we’ve incorporated this feedback, we’ll be ready to seek out another round of testers – this time from a pool of players who enjoy narrative-heavy games.

Thanks for following along with our development journey. We’ll be back with more updates as we keep moving forward. And hey, if you love story-rich games and want to help us test in the future, feel free to reach out! We could use more eyes on the project.