Reading Journal Project 3

Week Oct.14.2019

In this week’s Reading the book went further into exampling how playtesting works and why they are an important process for the process of a game’s development. It went through several fundamental concepts of playtesting based on the author’s experience as a game designer.

The reading started on page 271 to 272 where the author explains a few misunderstanding about playtesting. Based on my experience as a student studying game design, I thought playtesting is only about letting players play the version of the game I have and receive feedback based on questions and my observations. However, playing is only one part of the process, playtesting is a method that is more complicated and play a more essential role to the development. What I did in my past playtests were just getting feedback on the game’s control and the mechanic, sometimes the feedback I got from the player create a huge confusion for me and sometimes leads me to go against my vision of the game. And some of the feedback I got in the past were too predictable, the players often pointed out problems I clearly knew and were on my “to fix” list. And that makes me feel like I wasn’t gaining too much from playtesting, thus making me to think mistakenly that playtesting isn’t as important as what I’ve been taught. 

I think my mistakes in the past playtests are not doing it with enough time and doing it too late in the development process. As a suggestion, the author gave one suggestion in this chapter one thing about playtesting is to start playtesting as early as possible because it is hard for the developer to make functional changing at the late production without breaking or hugly remaking the game mechanics that are existed in the game. The Figure 9.1 he provided on page 272 has really show how playtesting should be placed during the complete production cycle. 

The Figure above shows that playtesting is not only a process exist between production phase and QA phase like what I did in the past. In fact, the developer can start testing their ideas during the very beginning of the production by making and showing simple prototypes that reflect a certain game mechanic to the tester. What platesting does to the production is to create many small cycles within the production. As what we have known, it creates a cycle of test, evaluation, and revision. But what the figure does differently with me is the amount of playtesting it has thought out the entire production. It is a constant task of the production compared to how I treated it as a phased task that exist somewhere in the middle of the development(BETA) and right before the Launch( due date). Although it might seem like a complicated job to do that will take a lot of time from the short time budget we got for each projects. I believe the benefit of this method is that It gives the developer as many chances as possible to interact with the players and getting feedback from. And that allow them to constantly evaluate the stage of the project and address the problems of the design as early as possible. It also gives the developer more space to think about the changes and reworking their mechanics. And with the production getting closer to the Launch date, the cycle gets smaller and smaller on the graph. I believe at this phase the developers are hosting playtesting that has a more detailed focus on what they want to test out before the launch. I think the graph contains a very interesting and useful method on playtesting, it helps me to understand what I didn’t do right before in a systematic and easily understandable way. But a question I have about this method is that it is something for a more professional production that has a longer development time for the project. What I usually get for school projects are only 3-4 weeks of production time, and we usually making the project solo or in a small team of 2-4 people. I don’t know if it is possible for a small team like this to host playtests as frequently as the graph shows. I think this is something that I have to find out during my further practice of playtesting.

Week Oct.21.2019

This week’s reading continues its focus on different types of playtest, when you should playtest, and who you should playtest with. 

The graph on page 275 is a great visual presentation on who you should test you game with at which stage of the development. It divided playtester into 3 types and assigned them into different periods of the development. The 3 types are self-testing, playtest with confidants, and playtest with stranger/target audience.  strangers/target audience allows the designers to get constructive feedback that address detailed problems of the game and is beneficial to the overall improvement of the project. 

So far in our development process we were able to try playtesting our game with all three kinds of playtesters. We started testing our basic mechanic within the group to get an idea of how the game might feel and looks like. We were able to get the controls and attack done for this version of the game and was planning to add more features into our game. However, we didn’t follow the order of playtest according to the reading suggested. We had a playtest with strangers right after our self-playtest and tried out some new ideas that would set a solid direction for our future development. By the time I was trying on some new concepts and the feedback we received from our playtesters really help us to make the focus of our development and cutting some unnecessary features we were planning to do during the planning phase. 

The third playtest we did was with confidants, I did a playtest with my roommate(a game design student in NYU) and an in-class playtest with our classmates. Both are people we have some level of connection with. And unlike what the reading said, besides testing if our game is playable without too much instruction from us, we also receive many constructive feedback addressing detailed problems or suggestions that would make the game more enjoyable to play. I think the reason why this is happening is because all the playtesters we had in this playtest are people who have experience with games both as a player and a developer. They were able to compare the gaming experience they had with our game to games they played before. It was a very helpful playtest session and I cannot imagine how the quality of feedback would growth  if we have a bigger number of playtester made by gamers. Since they are the people who have rich play experience and have a clear image of what a game they want would be look/play like. 

The experience we had in the third playtest really strengthen the point made by a graph on page 277. 

The graph shows the distribution of the numbers and knowledge about games between gamers and game developers. Although the majority of gamers might have lesser knowledge to games than game developers. But their number makes their voice an important factor to consider able while the game developers are making their games. Afterall, it is important for designers to know what their customers like and dislike.

What I really enjoy this week is reading on Nicole Lazzaro sharing the reason why people play games. Nicole summarized the fun and people’s playstyle into 4 types based on her experience working in the industry. Reading her words helped me to record some moments with games in the past, some of them were exciting, but most of them were heart-warming.

According to her, people play games in four following ways:

-Enjoy mastering a challenge(Hard Fun)

-Fire Imaginations (Easy Fun)

-Relaxation(Serious Fun)

-Hang out with Friends(People Fun)

As a gamer, it is easy for me to all these kind of fun and what kind of emotions they brought to me. I understand the excitement and self-affirmation I get after defeating a powerful enemy or other players. I had laughter with friends while chatting and doing stupid things in the game. Finding objects and reading its lore to understand why this game world need a hero. And Sometimes use it as a harbor that would shield me away from all the negativities I got from real life. But as designers, all these emotions are generated by a collection of game mechanics designed by us. We cannot tell people how they should feel, but we could try leading them to the emotional response we are looking for through a sets of rules. 

What I really like about this week’s reading, especially this part of it, is not only the technical knowledge it provides that would help me to become a better game designer. But it also affects me on an emotional level(while talking about how emotions work in game) and works as a motivation for me by reminding me why I want to become a game designer.