Let's continue our discussion on playtesting by discussing some of the who, when, and where of playtesting. Let's start with who do you want to playtest your game? There are many possible people you can have playtest your game, including members of the development team. They are the ones building the game, so it is important for them to test the game often. It also helps the team stay motivated as they see the vision of the game come to life. You could have confidants and other game developers playtest as they typically understand the game development process and understand the difference between an early prototype and a late prototype, for example. That is, they're able to give you appropriate feedback based on the stage of development. You could have professional playtesters test the game, these are people that are paid to playtest. They are typically part of the quality assurance team. They playtest for a living and are often really good at rooting out problems with the game and documenting them for the team. Obviously, you also want the target audience for the game to playtest your game. If you're making a game for kids, you really need to have kids playtest the game, as the development team is probably not composed of this target audience. You should also try to include both casual game players and core game players from the target audience. Because they often will have different perspectives on the game and the balance of difficulty level will be different for each. You also want to include a mixture of first impression testers and return testers. First impression testers are playing your game for the first time. They're great at providing feedback on your game that is not biased by interactions with previous builds of the game, while return testers have played the game before. They may have good feedback on changes that have been made since the last time they tested. And there are many others that you may have playtest your game that don't fit in the above categories, such as members of the marketing team, press, upper management, and friends and family. Another important question is when do you playtest? You should start playtesting as soon as possible during the concept phase and continue playtesting all the way to launch. In short, you should be playtesting all the time. This figure from Tracy Fullerton's Game Design Workshop Textbook shows how the testing cycle gets tighter and tighter as production moves forward, signifying smaller and smaller design issues to solve and changes to make. Therefore, you're making big changes early in development and much smaller changes as the game draws near to launch. Take a minute to think about recruiting playtesters for your game in the design activity. Who are you recruiting? How are you recruiting? What type of testers are they? And what is the goal of having them test? Pause the video and take a minute or two to think of these questions. There are a number of things that you need to do to prepare for a playtest. Obviously, first and foremost, you need to have a prototype to playtest. Beyond just having a prototype of the game, you may need to do some additional setup or even feature implementation into the prototype. Such as having the ability to start the players at a part of the game you want them to test. If you always start at level one, playtesters may never get to later stages of the game. To that end, you may want to build in shortcuts or cheat codes to jump around the game and do things like provide players with additional resources so they can test what you need them to test. You may also want to have save states that are set up and ready to load in for testing, so each playtester starts testing at exactly where you want them to. And last but not least, you want to build in a system to collect in-game analytics within the prototype. That is, a system that gathers data on the playtest session, like how long it took the player to level up, how many times they died within a level and where. This sort of data can be invaluable when balancing the game. Another thing that you need to do is to prepare your playtesting space. This diagram shows a typical playtesting setup. You want the player to feel comfortable and natural in the playtesting environment. Further, you want to wait to see both what the player's doing in the game and the player themselves. That is, you want to see the player's face as they play, as their face is the window into their emotions. So where do you playtest? You can test where you create the games. This is convenient for you and your team, less convenient for finding and bringing in testers. It may be intimidating for them to come into your space. Your space is likely set up for game development and not game testing. You don't want to interrupt progress on the game while testing is going on. Of course, some studios have dedicated playtesting spaces within their studios. Or you can rent out a dedicated playtesting facility which is set up for playtesting. It may or may not simulate an actual play environment, such as a little living room-like setup. But of course, it may be expensive to get access to this sort of space. Some studios hire external QA contractors that may have this sort of facility. You can also test in the playtesters' homes. This is most convenient for the testers. Given how we are all online today through the Internet, this approach makes a lot of sense. However, there are lot of unknowns in the testers' setup in terms of their hardware, controllers, Internet speed, and the like. There maybe also be logistic and privacy concerns if you want to record them as they test. Another possibility is to playtest in public spaces, such as at a mall, coffee shop, or library. By going out to these locations, it's easy to find people, but they're often distracted by other things like shopping. You also have to bring everything with you and set it up for actual testing. And depending on the location, you may not have privacy or a good spot to actually set up. You may also have to get approvals from the venue. Okay, for the design activity, let's think about your hypothetical playtest setup. Where can you playtest your game? What do you need ready in the game to playtest? And how will you setup for the playtest? What do you need? Things like controllers, headphones, and the like. Pause the video and think about your playtest setup now. [MUSIC]
