Every week we at least do one play test, we do one on a Thursday and any more before if we have added something large into the game; we do this to make sure that content is working and so players are enjoying the game.
I believe it has been a good idea for us to do at least 1 weekly play tests as over the weeks we have been doing them we have updated the game in a range of ways from how we found people were playing the game and suggestions we were given; which has changed a range of areas of the game which is what we wanted them to do.
How the play tests work:
We ask people if they would like to play the game and record anything they might do/not do or say, this can be a range of things for example if the player starts shooting power ups instead of collecting them, if any bugs are found during the tests, or if the player likes or dislikes a part of the game.
These images shows bugs that players found while playing the game, if it wasn’t for the play tests we might not have found the bugs as easily and created a way to remove it.
These images show play tests at different stages of development from these we got a range of feedback such as mechanics for the game such as players didn’t like that when they tried to move around their base they kept bashing into the base its self, the players thought they would be able to travel though the base.
We also got feedback to how a player suggested that the shop should look like so we created a few ideas and got the players to pick which layout they preferred and use that for our game.
One suggestion we got from a few players which the development team didn’t consider was making the sprites larger which after we tried made a huge improvement to the interface and other plays also liked the new sizes, because of this we kept the players idea in the game as it wasn’t a huge change to make to the game and so didn’t go against any of the games fundamentals.
Another player suggested that if the player is hit by an enemy or a bullet they should have some sort of damage effect to make a penalty and to stop players from sitting on top of enemies, because of this I plan on adding this feature so the player’s speed will be lowered, their sprite will be translucent with a gif so they get more and more transparent the reasons why I’m doing two features is so the player can easily see they are damaged instead of not knowing what’s happening, and I will also restrict the player from shooting to make the game slightly harder for the player, once this has been produced I plan on asking players what they think of the new feature and depending on the majority make changes depending on results.
Evolution of Defence 