I think the point is that different scaled games might require a different approach to play testing.
I was really hoping to get more insight on how larger companies approach it for mid scale or large scale titles and if they bother with stuff like pre-alpha play tests outside of the core team? I can’t help but think it’s not really useful until the later stages of the project.
Maybe this is another reason larger projects carry more risk?
I’d flip that around: is there any point play testing those aspects of your game in 15 minute sessions?
Sounds like you might have picked things that are especially hard to playtest.
If that progression is the core of your game, playtesting before that is implemented, will test the mechanics that are there with special focus. I remember having played a demo of Jagged Alliance 2 before I got the real game. It was 1 sector with a basement level I believe. You had a preset group of mercs and weapons and all the progression was taken out. I’m not even sure if it was a level from the full game or a special level just for the demo. I just remember that I played through it several times because I liked the combat in that game so much. It has plenty of depth, plenty of decisions to make and feels challenging and rewarding in its own right. This comment of one of your testers:
Sounds a bit as if you might not have reached a level of depth in your combat mechanics yet to make it engaging enough on its own. If you playtest now you’ll probably get feedback along those lines. I’m not sure how useful that is for you. Also if the number of testers you have is too small, the chances of personal preferences skewing the feedback gets bigger.
I don’t really have the experience to say something like this, but my impression is that external playtesting is more helpfull to make a game “less broken” than making it “more fun”. Imho you need to be real honest with yourself when you test your own game and ask yourself if you are having fun. Sure it will get a chore after a while no matter how good the game is, but you can still judge if there is a challenge and if you are making meaningful decisions. External playtesting might then tell you if the challenge is too hard or the decisions too overwhelming. But as I said, all speculation on my part. Not sure if this is even helpful.
It occurred to me while reading this thread that this is a challenge lots of small gamedevs face.
The natural question becomes - is there a portal to connect potential playtesters with early game alphas/betas to get a bigger audience and some sort of structured feedback?
Seems like a niche that needs to be filled if not. Some people like to test games and many people like to give their opinion(haha we know this is not a rare commodity).
This is not an advertisement or anything. I’m not trying to post a “WIP”, but I think it might be helpful to the discussion to have a material example, and I’m willing to put my project out there for inspection. Maybe the process of examining a project in progress, warts and all will be a useful example for others. Warning: this is not a polished release, it’s a nightly build so things might be a little extra wonky.
I am going to post a download link to my last build if anyone wants to give it a spin, here’s the windows build as of yesterday:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/rii7puhijav1sel/BSG_4_7.zip?dl=0
The game is turn based as noted. You can check out some videos here to get a basic idea of the game play:
I’m quite pleased with where the project is at the moment, so let’s dissect it in terms of play testing.
Take a look, is this at a stage where you think play testing is valuable?
If so, what kind of feedback should I be looking for?
The problem is that most sources are insanely flooded and the quality of the responses frequently border on … less than useful(?).
We even have a ‘feedback friday’ thread here in the unity forums, but it gets almost no attention these days.
I think that this kind of problem is a major one facing indie devs, especially solo efforts. I think that learning to manage feedback, and learning to calibrate your expectations of it is something very important and surprisingly difficult to do unless you’re a member of a some kind of group or community that’s very involved.
It may also be something that simply takes a lot of experience/skill in order to judge and understand.
Ok I just finished the demo, here is my feedback, hope it helps. Most of my criticism is focused around the camera and the targetting.
In rough order as I experienced it:
Sorry I guess I did not answer the question. Yes, I think this is fine for play testing at this stage.
At the risk of sounding overly critical I think things like the camera and and targetting systems need work, and those are things playtesters would comment on. I am assuming the movement, camera, and combat(with the skills available) is at a point you consider near done. If that is not the case then no, I would wait.
I was playing @frosted 's game ;)…
Well you have beta’s to fix bugs, alpha’s are pretty much is the concept any good? It’ll be rough around the edges of course, but should provide essentially a basis of what your game is all about.
We’re not mind readers, so you have to get the point across.
Final note on the targetting, I think a small crosshair would probably be all you need for the player to not feel as confused as to how to select an enemy. See screenshot below of one of my favorite games of all time, Darkfall Online, which is also a fantasy first person view type game(albeit not turn based). That tiny little unobtrusive crosshair in middle of the screen immediatelly tells you what you are aiming at and I think is more intuitive than guessing where the center of your camera is.
I know, I was still talking to frosted, taking your experience as an example. Only your post made me realize how unclear I was, Sorry! For clarification I edited in a “This comment of one of your testers:” before quoting you.
@tiggus : I think I had all those bugs as well.
@frosted : I found the space key to enter/end combat super unintuitive the way it is implemented and it cost one of my characters his life. Too many games use space for pause in a similar context, an action that is always safe. Worst case you’ll unpause accidentally and can pause again right away. E.g. Baldurs Gate or FTL come to mind. I think Fallout Tactics in realtime mode might have had it like this too.
Once I opened the character intro for a character during combat and pressed space to make the info go away, ending my turn and getting attacked right away. I think enter would be better to enter/end combat or end turn. I think space should switch to the next character in your party when you have depleted all APs of the active character and only when all APs of all characters are spent should space end your turn. If your active char still has APs it might make sense to use space to swith to the next one and use TAB to switch through your chars in the other direction.
Overall in terms of usability and communication of controls and mechanics you are leaps and bounds ahead of most of what I’ve seen around here, but still, I think it is a bit too confusing/unintuitive as it is.
I’ve had trouble finding my people, finding my target, getting an idea of how the area is structured. I ended up switching back and forth between chars just to get a better idea of where the separated guys need to go to help with the fight. I don’t even know how I managed to get them lost so far behind. And I’ve accidentally ended sooo many turns.
I think I’d do more bugfixing and tweaking of controls first before you launch a bigger round of testing. The more known issues you fix beforehand the less redundant the reports will be. But I think the current state was useful for some testing already, based on the feedback we could give you. At least if the things we mentioned were not all on your todo list already.
Edit: Not sure if it is already implemented or planned, but imho this kind of combat needs a backstab attack that you can execute when you face the back of a player. That would make movement feel a whole lot more meaningful imho.
Man, screw you guys… The problem is that ^^ kind of feedback is not remotely normal. The quality of the feedback that @tiggus and @Martin_H just gave is in no way indicative of the normal feedback that most people will give.
Like, I really appreciate this guys, but you’re really killing my argument by giving such fucking awesome, detailed, and well thought out feedback.
Normally what you get is like “hey it’s ok, i hit a bug i think” or something.
Maybe the problem is that I’m trying to get random people to play it… and random people just kind of suck?
Haha, well you have a very specific audience in this thread so that helps. You didn’t think we would half-ass it after talking about playtesting for a full page did you? 
By the way, something I noticed that I think you did really well - the length is just right for a play test of the mechanics. I felt like it was probably a good representation of how the rest of the game feels when it plays and it was short enough that I didn’t mind giving detailed feedback before I got bored with a demo.
Perfect length in my opinion for this stage of a game. I did a lot of play testing for a MMO called Age of Conan and they did entire zones in their closed beta and it was almost too much - you’re looking forward to the next encounter(s) too much and by the time you are ready to submit feedback you’ve forgotten half of it.
Actually all attacks can be backstabs, the target will only attempt a block if you’re in front of him. But yeah - definitely needs a special backstab.
The perfect time for a scenario in a game like this is around 10-15 minutes… i’ve done exhaustive research. Although it can vary - you really need to generally vary around that window.
That’s kind of what I meant with “[…]my impression is that external playtesting is more helpfull to make a game “less broken” than making it “more fun”.”. I’d take a single smart playtester over a dozen random people from steam forums any day, to get input on how to make a game better. I’d ask the random people to make sure the game is easy enough to understand, foolproof enough, resistant enough against exploits etc…You need both I think, but for different tasks.
I agree.
Didn’t you even have a whole thread about pacing? It sure paid off. I think the pacing in This War Of Mine is pretty similar and plays a big part in why I liked that game so much. If you are going for a similar back and forth between combat and management/progression, that’s good news I think. I’m looking forward to see this game grow! I think there is a lot of good in it already and I think you’re headed in the right direction for player engagement.
Alright… lesson learned. Play testing early can be useful, just not if you’re scrounging around on the internet looking around at random people.
Wow, I’m literally shocked. I wasted way too much time, and I’m totally changing my approach to play testing immediately.
You guys really rock. Thanks.
^^^
Hey, does my feedback suck or something? Leaving me out the fold, so jealous ARRRRR!.. 
When you get to wave 2, I’ll be happy to check it out again.!
Yours was good too man!
But yeah, lesson learned. You need to find a couple smart guys who know what they’re looking at and can give insightful feedback, not the general public. Open the doors to general public in the late stages, not the beginning…
I agree, I see promise here for sure. When the guys started shifting position during battle it reminded me of old school Wizardry where the monsters would shift from front to back as they got wounded or wanted to retreat. It was cool to see a game implement this in 3D.
