Testing

First go check out part four or start at part one

There was a lot of material in the course and I won’t go over all of it but I will end with a few of the prototyping principles we talked about:

1.       Embrace the beginners mind – make sure people who have never seen the game (or any game) can pick it up and use it quickly

2.       Don’t fall in love with your first ideas – be willing to change everything and anything

3.       Expose your work early – seek criticism and improve based on comments (repeat)

4.       Learn faster by failing early and often (and cheaply)

Are you playtesting something right now?

Do you have a printable/downloadable version of your game?

As always – let me know

PJ

First go check out part three or start at part one

The fun part of the course for me was delivering the prototype and getting feedback.  Giving and receiving criticism are difficult to do.  For me though the material of the course was easy as I wasn’t invested in in like I might be if this is my game design.  The two feedback mechanisms that were discussed:

Ritual Dissent –                  you present your prototype in a few minutes (5 in our case) and then you turn your back to the group as they work with it and only give negative feedback.  You write notes like crazy but don’t turn around or interact with the reviewers. (and yes I think this is a card title in several Cthulhu games)

Unknown Name –            this method was the opposite – you present your prototype and they give only positive feedback as you all interact with it and ask questions.  This was easier in that you can interact with the people directly.  (and yes I know I had one job of getting the name ….and I failed – we’ll use Ritual Consent…… or maybe not!)

Both of these could be helpful for developers and testing.  The important takeaway for me was that most people don’t want to give negative feedback to your face. Having some way they can give negative feedback anonymously or without seeing the impact of each negative comment might allow for more negative comments – which might make for a better game.  The other part was that the feedback is organised.  It’s done in all positive and all negative groups and not just a huge dump of both.  This might help provide some of both – so you don’t walk away thinking it’s all bad (or all good).

The Bamboozle Brothers have written a great article about feedback –

 https://inspirationtopublication.wordpress.com/2010/09/11/step-12-honest-feedback-honestly/

Has anyone done a form for feedback?

Let me know
Comment on this and then go read Part 5

PJ

First go check out part two or start at part one

They covered levels of prototypes specific to industry design – think solutions to problems, but for game design I think the first two are what designers use with themselves or their design team.  The third level is what we would view as a prototype and the fourth is more what I think about when you are looking to provide a demo to a company when you want to sell your game to them.

We’re going to post some of our early creations when we start the design process.  Do others do this?  Do people worry about others stealing their ideas?  Or borrowing the best parts of them?

Let me know
Comment on this and then go read Part 4

PJ