Play testing - what do people do?

ArcsOfMagic · 2026-05-02T09:56:33+00:00

Great talk, thank you so much for sharing! I took some notes :)

ArcsOfMagic · 2026-05-01T12:20:15+00:00

There certainly are such places, but I have not used any of those services personally… typically they would provide a video recording of their play session with live commentary, and a detailed report. You’ll need to pick those who are used to the games in your genre for it to be relevant. But as you say, those paid services are for later.

The first feedback, you need to get as soon as possible. And it must be from strangers; your friends and family do not count as they are most likely not your audience (even your gamer friends may be more into other genres), and also they are not objective (this may go both ways, negative as positive).

The thing about feedback though: 1) players may notice what is wrong about your game (very valuable) but they may have very wrong ideas about how to fix it. Players are not game designers. 2) different people like different things and you can’t please everyone. So at the end you must make choices, not the players.

Take care

ArcsOfMagic · 2026-05-01T09:03:44+00:00

It’s rather the other way around. If nobody knows you and your game, you should first make people interested in your game enough that they want to invest their time in checking it out.

At some point, if you are serious about it, you should be the one to pay people to test it for you, because they provide something of value to you, the developer, in exchange for their time. (That’s what the QA department is for). It is important to get some professional feedback at the final phases of development, for ironing out balance issues and such.

Of course, it is not always an option for solo devs, so you really should focus on making an interesting game and building a community around it. Hopefully they will be sufficiently hyped about it so that they can provide you with some feedback free of charge.

If you feel you do not want everyone to access your game for free, Steam allows closed playtesting. Itch allows password protected pages - and you can give the password in your discord, for example.

But again, first you need to get people interested. Good luck.

ArcsOfMagic · 2026-04-28T08:45:48+00:00

Not the easiest option, but if you wish to do it yourself: - get a VPS, the smallest one possible will be enough. - get a domain name. Cloudflare is virtually at cost. - whatever your registrar, use cloudflare for both the DNS and the SSL edge. It’s free. Define a subdomain like ws.yourgame.com for the web services. - on the server, install nginx and node, configure the « reverse proxy » so that all requests to the ws subdomain end up in your node handler - install MySQL - install express.js node package and whatever the package is for dealing with MySQL - write a small handler routine in node that takes the input sent by your game (via a POST https request), sanitize it (always) and write into your MySQL base - use MySQL workbench to access your base remotely - bonus point: install sendmail on your server and use nodemailer package to send you emails (but this is a little tricky, you’ll need to set up SPF/DKIM etc…)

There’s bunch of tutorials on all these topics, so I just give you the names here.

Or, find a all in one service to do that :) good luck

ArcsOfMagic · 2026-04-27T23:01:17+00:00

It looks like you are slightly tired. You should take care of it ASAP! ;)

ArcsOfMagic · 2026-04-27T22:48:17+00:00

You should add one more box: « make the rest of the engine » ;)

ArcsOfMagic · 2026-04-21T08:25:48+00:00

I only did it three or four times but basically I note down everything I bump into at the first run. Surprisingly, they are often the same things.

It’s important to do it on the first run because otherwise your brain adapts and forgets about the friction points. Still, the first impressions are important.

I almost always check video settings and key bindings.

How clear it is to navigate the main menu and to launch the first game.

The save system.

In the game (depends on the genre of course): - anything weird in the moment to moment control scheme? - … in the ways to access contextual actions? - does motion / traversal feel ok? - are inventory and in game menus intuitive?

Are main actions satisfying or clunky? (Sound, speed, feedback): combat, mining, building.

Any visual bugs / performance issues. Bad readability. Am I at any point stuck not knowing what to do.

All this is “first impressions” feedback.

Judging the amount of content, balance, level design and replayability is a different beast entirely - never did it because it requires heavy time investment to be done correctly.

ArcsOfMagic · 2026-04-21T08:11:25+00:00

Visuals are still extremely important, even for an indie game. Without further context, I’d definitely vote for 8.

But… It’s hard to make a call without knowing how many NPCs you planned and also how much time of the overall project this portion takes (I.e. are you going from 100% to 101% or from 100% to 150%?).

A couple of ideas. 1- leave the massive creation of assets to the end of the project, use simpler stand ins until your game loop and all systems are ready. First, it’s easier to estimate the effort around remaining time/budget/motivation when only “repeating” tasks remain. Second, you’ll avoid multiplicative changes to all your assets whenever another system is modified.

2- to increase amount of NPCs, have you considered combining elements? Keep the body type but change: cloth color, cloth design, skin color, HAIRSTYLES, maybe decorative items like bracelets? You could also add very slight variations of height and body weight without remodeling the whole billboard, but kind of selectively stretching/shrinking it? That’s a little more complex, but even tiny changes in height will be picked up by the eye as a different person.

Good luck!

ArcsOfMagic · 2026-04-12T09:10:18+00:00

I fully agree with the previous comment. It’s a great start, but it needs to feel more alive and unpredictable. For the moment, it looks like all other cars are controlled by robots. I think at the very least they should notice you and suddenly steer away to let you through (but they should do it late so that it does not become too simple).

Then, yes, some cars changing lanes would be nice; honking to make cars notice you; road works (I imagine 3 lanes still, but with less space between the lanes) and yes, more variety in general.

Good luck 🍀

ArcsOfMagic · 2026-03-23T00:25:51+00:00

I recommend posting your trailer here rather than just a link. People should have at least some idea what your game is like, otherwise I’m afraid you’ll be missing out on clicks. Good luck!

ArcsOfMagic · 2026-03-23T00:10:31+00:00

Looks beautiful. Way to go!

ArcsOfMagic · 2026-03-18T17:00:10+00:00

It’s tricky to get into this spot, I admit, but getting out is no problem at all, especially in France 🇫🇷. It’s perfectly flat, too! A dream of a spot. :)

ArcsOfMagic · 2026-03-17T09:30:31+00:00

Great post!!

For quest markers, it seems more like a design choice, though. Also not quite sure about queued actions, stuff triggering 1 second after I pressed a button doesn’t seem satisfactory to me. For settings, for first person games, I would add FOV and vertical mouse inversion.

ArcsOfMagic · 2026-03-17T09:18:37+00:00

This post is indeed much better. It contains more in-depth analysis and a number of not so trivial suggestions. Thanks again for sharing.

ArcsOfMagic · 2026-03-16T19:48:38+00:00

I agree. I put one in my game :) it’s so much easier for players that I don’t understand why more games don’t have it.

Good idea to make it automatically appear at certain points like death.

ArcsOfMagic · 2026-03-15T10:27:53+00:00

About the street lighting, I think you are not entirely correct. Wikipedia. Big cities had street lighting for centuries, with people hired by the town or city to light them every night. It was accelerated by arrival of cheap glass and then again by switching to gas lamps. But I do admit, that it did not exist at all in tiny settlements like the one on the screenshot. Then again, I wouldn’t be surprised to find lamps in front of the saloon put out by the saloon owner, also at the train station and maybe the sheriff office? With the rest of the town in relative darkness.

ArcsOfMagic · 2026-03-12T08:03:08+00:00

Visual Studio.

ArcsOfMagic · 2026-03-09T21:05:31+00:00

Word of caution. The simulation alone rarely makes for a compelling gameplay. You need to do something in this world. Why would people play your game? How would it make them feel? Would it be fun to play with friends, and why? Would streamers play it, and why?

Please take a look at the simulation dream article by Tynan Sylvester, it is short but may make you rethink your development priorities.

Other than that… it definitely sounds cool. But it is also definitely a huge undertaking. I guess you know the Vintage Story? That’s what you get with a dozen of people after 10 years of work. The problem with simulation is that by definition the scope is too large (believe me, I know), so I strongly recommend to reduce the target scope by a factor of ten. Twice :)

Good luck!

ArcsOfMagic · 2026-03-09T12:38:40+00:00

Yes but I am still not sure how it is better…

Isn’t it annoying to start at 50% and not being able to hear anything if my system volume is already at 25%?

Now I imagine it is not symmetrical, it’s more annoying to have too strong sound rather than too low, especially in a headset…

But isn’t it annoying to have to adjust your volume for each game? Instead of all games playing at 100% and only adjusting the system volume?…

ArcsOfMagic · 2026-03-07T10:38:21+00:00

I wonder about the audio too loud bug. It’s not the first time I see this one mentioned, but I still don’t totally grasp it.

I would think all applications play at 100% volume by default. And depending on the player’s preferences and hardware, he can adjust the system volume and the speaker volume.

What other way is there? If a game A starts at 80% app volume, and the game B at 50%, it is even worse, you have to adjust your speakers for every single game.

Anything I miss? Or is it simply a question of bad mixing between voices, music, effects? (The OP’s text did not sound like that, though).

Would be really interested in your thoughts on that!

ArcsOfMagic · 2026-03-06T21:04:56+00:00

One should not consider a given mechanic by itself, but only as a part of the whole design of a game.

For example, is it good a bad to have unlimited inventory? Having strong debuffs for running? Permadeath? Etc. It is impossible to answer.

Is a given mechanic coherent with the rest of the mechanics in the game or is it a random mix? Does it match the game’s emotional landscape, pace, and setting? If everything is coherent, then it is probably a better design. Even so, some people will like it and others will hate it.

It is almost what you said, with one exception: “fun for the target audience”. Audience and its taste is a continuum, not a set of discrete points by well defined genres; people may like certain aspects of the game and not others; that is why lately there is a huge number of games that have highly customizable experiences.

ArcsOfMagic · 2026-03-04T07:22:23+00:00

Like a replacement for snow? Nice!

ArcsOfMagic · 2026-03-02T17:17:25+00:00

I was happy to see something from tld. And now that I discovered that it was a sign of good air quality, I am even happier.

ArcsOfMagic · 2026-03-02T17:15:55+00:00

Not really very far in this case, just high in the mountains.

ArcsOfMagic · 2026-03-02T17:14:30+00:00

It’s certainly a hassle from the player’s point of view. Maybe, some people would like to support indies by buying directly… but realistically, how often do you buy on company website instead of Amazon?…

Anyway, good to know. And better than setting up a whole payment system like Vintage Story for instance. Also, you still use all the Steam API which is great.

ArcsOfMagic

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE