Play/bug testing

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siska

I'm planning on releasing a small (commercial) point&click puzzle game later this year.
I would love your advise on how to best organize play testing as to remove the final bugs before release.

. how to find the people willing to test your game ?
. how to best give them access to the game ?
. what kind of feedback would be useful to get (asside from bugs) ?
. Dropbox ? Early Access ?

Thanks !

TwistedTwigleg

I’m not sure on how to find people, but for the other parts:

how best to give access?
- Personally, I would try to make a “demo” and give testers access to that, with an extremely small group of people you really trust having potentially a look at the full game prior to release. The advantage of a demo is that then if it leaks and/or is uploaded without permission, it is not the full game.
What kind of feedback would be useful (aside from bugs)?
- Depends on what you are looking for, but in general I would ask for feedback on pacing (was it fun throughout? Was there a part in particular that was less enjoyable?) and difficulty curves (did it suddenly feel too hard/easy?). Those two elements are what I have struggled the most with personally, so if it was me, that is what I’d try to focus on.
- Depending on whether you are wanting to possibly add/adjust content or not, another good question would be something to the effect of “if you could change one thing in the game, what would it be?”. This could give you insights into what your testers think would be an improvement without the constraint of what is in the game currently. On the flip side though, this could lead to a lot of work depending on how realistic or not the feedback is! Also - sometimes people have a vision that may be different from yours, so you wouldn’t want to make the suggested change for that reason. Ultimately, if you ask for what they would change, I would take it into consideration but not view it as something that HAS to be done but rather something that is a pain-point that may be worth iterating on to see if you can smooth the element that the change addresses.
Dropbox? Early Access?
- I’d share it however you are most comfortable with. Dropbox, Google Drive, a private Itch.IO page, Early Access on Stream, etc - they are all ways to serve the file. If you are trying to keep testing limited and non-public, then I would probably not use something like Early Access on Steam initially though, but that is just me.

siska

Thanks ! All valuable info !

For this particular game, I can't do a demo because it's a 'shortish' point&click game. So, unless I can somehow find some people that like the genre & would like to test the game, I guess I'm sort of stuck with the (very public) Early Acces ...

DaveTheCoder

Don't forget to offer the testers some kind of reward, such as a reduced price for the released game or recognition in the credits.

remove the final bugs

I would rephrase that. 😉

siska

Yes ! Good to remind me of that : a reward !

'I would reprase that.'
Oh, this is just for this forum, so you know the purpose of the play testing. I would rather have most bugs fixed before I let people buy it ... =)