Playtesting
You’re likely to have encountered the term playtesting before, be it in this very book or elsewhere. In short, playtesting is the process in which you expose your game to the members of your target audience in order to uncover issues and design flaws and gather actionable feedback that can help improve the game.
However, there’s more to playtesting than simply having people play your game and tell you what they think. Varying circumstances ask for different methodologies, and knowing how to apply them is essential in obtaining and analyzing results.
We’ll now arm you with practical expertise that should help you decide on the following:
- Which parts of the game to test and when?
- Who should participate?
- How to run a playtest session?
- How to gather and analyze feedback?
What to playtest?
Anything that cannot be verified within the confines of your development team is a potential playtesting candidate. A well-prepared...
