The Importance of Playtesting

Playtesting is an emerging discipline in games design that should hopefully become a required part of the production pipeline. Its value is often underplayed by many companies, even sometimes derided by designers, but it is quite simply the only way that you can properly guage how well you are building your game, and will result in you producing a better game if you approach it in the right way.

By far the leaders in this field are Microsoft. Their Games User Research department is just astounding.

http://mgsuserresearch.com/default.htm?MSID=8934bfd6814e40afb5835315db01c453&c00=1

Their site has a lot of links to talks that various members of the group have given at different games conferences. Having seen Ramon's talk at GDC this year, I was astounded to the level of depth they are now able to analyse games. However, not all of us have these facilities at our disposal.

However, we can attempt to replicate certain elements of their work on a tighter budget:

1. Provide Instrumentation
Having your game dump data as a player uses the game will allow you to collate much more information than user feedback or observation alone. Crunching the data can be tricky, so carefully plan out what data you want to watch beforehand - don't dump absolutely every scrap of information - only what you really need. For example, you might want to know what combos people are using in a fighting game, positions where people are dying often, or the times people are achieving in time trials.

2. Question your Subject
Asking for feedback from your test subject is vital. They should be encouraged to talk as much as possible about how they are feeling and what they are thinking as they are playing. This will provide vital information - sometimes people see things in a completely unexpected way. Also use questionaires to seek out answers to certain questions you may have - explore how they feel about certain aspects - and importantly whether they are enjoying the game experience.

3. Observe
There is nothing quite like watching someone play your game to understand the problems that people may encounter. It is vital however not to be tempted to give advice or show them solutions to problems (unless they are completely stuck for a protracted period of time and you want to press on with the testing).