**Warning: Contains explicit (Throw)language**
This week in the ThrowNews:
Playtesting and Data Analysis
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This is part 6 in a series on how to playtest games (part 1).
So it’s been a while since I’ve posted one of these, as we’ve recently taken on quite a few more people at Throw the Looking Glass and I’ve been doing a lot of work working out how to structure our studio going forward (more on this soon!). So sorry about the delay – I probably won’t be posting these quite as fast as I used to going forward, but I’ll aim for one a week.
Today, we’re going to look at what to do on the day of your playtest. This assumes you’re doing on-site testing rather than online testing (if you’re going with online, release it and see what happens!). So without further ado, let’s get started!
This is part 5 in a series on how to playtest games (part 1).
This time, we’ll be looking at how to measure those things that can’t easily be put into numbers: from player reactions and sticking points to interface feedback.
This is part 4 in a series on how to playtest games (part 1).
So we know why we’re playtesting, we know who and where, and we know what we want to measure. But how do we do it?
Today, we tackle this question for quantitative data.
This is part 3 in a series on how to playtest games (part 1).
The next step in our playtesting journey is deciding what you should measure. Measurement comes in many forms, and so today we’ll mostly be looking at what you’ll be measuring. We’ll look at how to collect that data next time.
This is part 2 in a series on how to playtest games (part 1).
Now you know why you’re playtesting, it’s time to use that knowledge to figure out some of the details of the tests you’ll be performing.
In this post, I’ll be looking at two aspects of this: where you should playtest, and who should be testing your game.
This is the first of a series of posts about playtesting, when we’ll be looking at the process of testing your game step by step.
It may sound ridiculously simple, but the first step of playtesting your game is to figure out why you’re testing your game. It’s surprisingly important to work out the nuances of the ‘why’, which will affect who, when and how you structure the rest of the process.
In this post, I’ll be going over why you need to find the purpose of the test and some common testing goals at different stages of development.
So, you’ve started developing your game, and you’ve got your basic gameplay done. It’s time to start playtesting*. The question occurs to you: how many people should be playtesting my game?
*If you’ve got something you can playtest with, you should be playtesting. As soon as possible. As I’ll explain in a bit, it’s really important to plan your playtesting (and we’ll be exploring this more in the coming weeks), but you really want to get to it pronto.
Jakob Nielsen, usability king, says that you only need 5 users to test each iteration of a design, and in many ways, this philosophy applies directly to playtesting. Yet this only truly applies to early phases of playtesting: in the latter stages, we’ll be taking a different approach.