ronynn's blog

Feedback and Playtesting are essential steps in game development

December 15, 2023

In the world of game development, creating a game that resonates with players is a combination of technical expertise, artistic vision, and careful refinement. However, one of the most crucial steps in ensuring a game’s success, especially in its early stages, is the process of feedback and playtesting. These practices help developers identify pain points, gauge player reactions, and understand the gameplay experience from a player’s perspective—allowing for targeted improvements that can turn a promising game into a polished, engaging product. In this essay, I will discuss the importance of feedback and playtesting, drawing from my own experience working with a team during the Ludum Dare Game Jam, and how these steps were integral in shaping our game into a project with commercial potential.

The Role of Feedback and Playtesting in Game Development

Feedback and playtesting are essential for refining a game’s mechanics, narrative, and overall player experience. While developers may have a vision for their game, the true test of its success lies in how players engage with it. This is where feedback and playtesting come into play.

• Feedback involves gathering opinions from players, designers, and other stakeholders about various aspects of the game. This feedback can come in many forms: from surveys, online reviews, or in-person playtesting sessions. It provides a holistic view of how the game is perceived, what works, and what doesn’t.

• Playtesting is a more focused process, where players actively engage with the game and provide insight based on their experiences. Playtesting helps to identify specific issues, such as confusing controls, unintuitive mechanics, or bugs that break the immersion of the game. Through playtesting, developers can observe players’ behavior in real-time, understand their emotional reactions, and make adjustments based on their responses.

Why Are These Steps Important?

1. User-Centered Design: Games are ultimately meant to be played and enjoyed by others. Playtesting ensures that the design is intuitive and that the user experience is prioritized. A game may look good on paper, but player reactions often reveal hidden problems that need to be addressed before a broader audience can engage with it.

2. Refining Game Mechanics: Player feedback helps identify which gameplay mechanics are enjoyable and which feel tedious or confusing. By observing how players interact with the game, developers can fine-tune the experience, making it more engaging and rewarding.

3. Identifying Bugs and Issues: Even with extensive internal testing, bugs can slip through the cracks. Playtesting is an invaluable tool for uncovering technical problems that may not have been apparent during development, such as performance issues, crashes, or glitches.

4. Improving Balance: Whether it’s the difficulty curve, pacing, or the power dynamics between characters, playtesting helps developers assess whether the game is balanced. Too easy or too difficult, and players lose interest. Getting this balance right is crucial for player retention.

Our Ludum Dare Experience: From Concept to Commercial Potential

Our team participated in the Ludum Dare Game Jam with a clear ambition: to create a fun, unique, and compelling experience in a short timeframe. The theme of the jam, “Beneath the Surface”, inspired us to craft a game that involved both exploration and mystery. We chose to make a point-and-click puzzle adventure set in an abandoned underwater research facility. While we had a solid concept, we quickly realized that without feedback and playtesting, we would have difficulty making it the kind of game players would want to engage with beyond the initial novelty.

Step 1: The Prototype and Initial Feedback

In the early stages of development, our primary focus was building a playable prototype with the core mechanics. Since time was limited, we emphasized the game’s narrative and exploration elements, but we weren’t able to fully refine the puzzle mechanics and player interactions. Once the initial build was ready, we opened the game up to a small group of internal playtesters within our team and a few trusted outside testers.

Initial feedback revealed several issues:

• Confusing Navigation: Players found it difficult to understand how to interact with objects in the environment. The user interface was clunky, and the instructions were unclear.
• Pacing Issues: The puzzles were either too easy or too difficult, leading to frustration or disengagement. Some players felt the difficulty spikes were jarring.
• Lack of Immersion: Although the environment looked atmospheric, players struggled to become emotionally invested because they didn’t feel like they were “truly there.” They didn’t connect with the environment or the narrative quickly enough.

Step 2: Iterating Based on Playtesting

After collecting feedback from our playtesters, we immediately set out to make adjustments. Here’s how the feedback directly influenced changes to the game:

• Improving User Interface and Interaction: Based on the feedback about confusing controls, we refined the UI to make interactions more intuitive. We introduced visual cues and tooltips that helped guide the player without giving too much away, creating a sense of discovery while also avoiding frustration.

• Balancing the Puzzles: We received several comments about puzzles being either too easy or too difficult, which hurt the game’s overall flow. After analyzing the feedback, we revamped the puzzle difficulty curve. Some puzzles were simplified, others made more complex, and we introduced incremental difficulty to keep players engaged without overwhelming them.

• Enhancing Immersion: Players reported a disconnect with the game’s world. To address this, we added more environmental storytelling, placing objects and notes in the world that hinted at the backstory. We also refined sound design to create an atmosphere that felt more alive and reactive to player actions. Players now felt more immersed in the eerie, abandoned research facility.

Step 3: External Playtesting and Gathering Broader Feedback

As the game began to take shape, we expanded our playtesting group to include external testers from different backgrounds—people who had no prior knowledge of the game’s development. This was crucial because it allowed us to gain a fresh perspective on how the game was being received.

Key takeaways from external playtesting:

• Narrative Depth: While we initially thought the narrative was clear, players found it somewhat shallow. The backstory needed more context to engage players emotionally. We added more journal entries and interactive dialogues that fleshed out the plot.
• Technical Issues: A few players experienced performance issues on lower-end systems. This feedback prompted us to optimize the game, reducing load times and making it more accessible across various devices.

Step 4: Polishing and Commercial Viability

After several rounds of playtesting, we had a much clearer vision of what our game could be. We had refined the core gameplay loop, fixed bugs, and enhanced the overall player experience. Armed with a more polished product, we decided to explore the potential of releasing the game commercially.

Through continued feedback, we identified new ways to market the game. Playtesters had mentioned enjoying the immersive elements of the game, particularly the atmospheric music and environmental storytelling. Based on these reactions, we decided to focus our marketing efforts on those aspects, creating trailers that showcased the game’s mood and mystery.

The final version of our game not only improved in terms of user engagement but also retention, with players spending more time exploring the world and solving puzzles. When we released the game on platforms like Steam and itch.io, it received positive reviews for its atmospheric storytelling, intuitive mechanics, and challenging puzzles—factors that were all influenced by the feedback and playtesting process.

Conclusion

In the fast-paced world of game development, feedback and playtesting are indispensable tools for turning a concept into a polished, engaging experience. Our team’s experience during the Ludum Dare Game Jam demonstrated the crucial role these practices played in shaping our game from a raw prototype into a commercially viable product. By iterating based on real-world player feedback, we were able to fine-tune the game’s mechanics, balance the difficulty, and create an immersive experience that resonated with players.

Ultimately, playtesting allowed us to understand the player’s perspective—helping us to solve problems before they became barriers to success. This process not only improved our game but also helped us build a deeper connection with our audience, making our game stand out in a competitive marketplace. In game development, feedback and playtesting are not just steps in the process; they are vital to ensuring a game’s success and longevity.