Playtesting has 2 parts. The developer has to playtest the mechanics and ensure they do exactly what they want, time has to be spent honing that part. No-one else can really help with that. As regards getting playtesters for the game that can only be done when a game has a complete framework, then a playtest can be run on one finely polished level. Unless a playtester is trained in Q & A which is different from just getting the general public to play the game, then you will only get meaningful data from a polished level. People cannot extrapolate beyond what they see before them for the most part, they won’t react to a wow element of the game if it is not present, no-one will say ‘if only it had …’ In general you will simply get a ‘That was good…’ Players generally don’t want to read much when it comes to a tutorial so it’s best to build it into the test level if possible (it depends on the genre). At no stage demand much of a playtester in that regard because it won’t reflect the reaction of the buying public, you have to treat the playtesters the same as any player so if you are going to put more control in for players on release, don’t, put it in for the test version right from the go. Get the test version as close to a release candidate as possible.
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