Hi,
I have been working on a shooter style game, and hope to have a playable version out in a week or two… Does anyone have any advice on getting the game playtested? I have several friends that will, but I would like to get more people than about 3 of my friends. I suspect that (Friends != good beta testers).
Should I publish a beta version on the market? This seems like a bad idea, for several reasons:
One, how would I get any real feedback, I could have an email link on the main menu of the game, but I kind of doubt many people would actually do anything more than post a “this sucks” comment on the market.
Two, I want the entire game tested, and if I plan on selling it later, I am basically giving away free games. (Maybe that’s not a bad thing)
Three, like I mentioned in one, I will very likely get poor reviews in the market, and this could scare away potential customers of the actual game.
Any other thoughts?
+1 I would also like to hear any advice on getting Android playtesters.
I think you should kind of advettize on here an related forums. Since devs are gamers they can give some useful data and you aren’t contaminating the “players-buyers” pool with bad versions.
Plus they understand things like prototype, alpha, beta, not-yet-polished etc.
I would suggest if you have a personal forum to create a forum section just for your beta players (you can easily add phpbb or SMF with most hosting services). This way you can have people post bugs, feedback and stuff and it’s separated from the actual game forum or whatever you have setup (or are planning to setup).
I would recommend a thread on a local Android forum.
You will reach the biggest number of people on the phandroid an xda forums, but when I watch the feedback the german android-hilfe.de forum outperforms the international ones every time a open beta test is started.
You are not supposed to upload beta versions to the market, it will just ruin your rating.
Ok, I will check with some of those other sites, once my app is ready for some testing. And if anyone on here wants to do a little beta testing, just let me know!