PreMortem.Games

NOVEMBER 17, 2023

Yet, for indie dev Almar, it offered an escape from the corporate rat race he felt trapped in. I definitely recommend getting feedback from external playtesters at each step “On each one of those steps I end up having one or more concrete ‘products’. The toll on your mental health can be quite high for solo devs.

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Brand Game Development

MARCH 31, 2017

I’ve created a playtesting log and I’ve done 11 tests so far. If you want to learn more about record-keeping and playtesting, I’ve got a great article for you to check out. I take my own advice, and this is what my playtesting log looks like. These tests can all be classified as “movement tests.”

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PreMortem.Games

MAY 24, 2024

It’s important to stick to the plan to avoid spending years making prototypes, that you will need to adapt in most cases after the first playtests. The post Solo dev Jason Nicot on his new project Sanctua “A more mature party game” appeared first on PreMortem Games. You just have to remember that!”

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PreMortem.Games

JULY 29, 2024

Working in Mixed Reality, I met many ex game devs and artists, who I learned from and was greatly inspired by. Although we weren’t making games, the tech for Mixed Reality was identical to making games, so I picked up a lot of technical ability with Unity, game dev, shaders and more.” Especially early-on. It’s made a huge difference.

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PreMortem.Games

FEBRUARY 15, 2024

I also released the demo on Steam early (after invite-only playtesting) so I can gather feedback from real players. The post Solo dev Rohan Nowell of Doggy Don’t Care “Just start building and ideas will come” appeared first on PreMortem Games. I play games (old and new) to get inspiration and bounce ideas off my wife and friends.

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PreMortem.Games

SEPTEMBER 28, 2023

He took some online courses on programming and he was in business, as a solo dev operating under the name of Frambosa , only six months later. So, his solo debut game Billy Bumbum might be the first and last game he made as a one-man-dev-team. All this before there’s ever any playtesting done.

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Dev Puzzle Prototyping Development 104

PreMortem.Games

MAY 19, 2023

Intricate mechanics The dev team faced two major challenges when translating the physical act of climbing to gameplay mechanics: replicating the intricate mechanics of grip, support, weight, and motion, and ensuring user-friendliness. Of these, the climbing system proved to be the most demanding task.

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Indy Dev Studios Playtesting 104

Cocos

MARCH 25, 2024

Hey wonderful folks on the Cocos Dev Team! Also, I’ve been toying around with the animation tool’s “embedded player”… I realize it’s still experimental feature, but it got me thinking… is there a way that we can preview a spine animation in editor without having to manually playtest the game?

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Dev Animation Animation Playtesting 40

Brand Game Development

JULY 9, 2018

/r/tabletopgamedesign and /r/boardgameindustry are good for connecting with other designers and developers, getting feedback on a design, or even organizing playtests. Many developers choose to create their own subreddits for playtesting. The post How to Use Reddit as a Board Game Dev appeared first on Brandon the Game Dev.

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GamesIndustry.biz

JUNE 4, 2024

Friendshipper is a development tool that the team has been using to improve how efficiently they build this game, such as faster implementation of bug fixes during playtests. The studio was founded by veterans from Riot Games and is currently working on a next-generation open-world multiplayer game.

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PreMortem.Games

APRIL 19, 2024

One of my close friends, Ches Denison, joined me working 5-10 hours a week as a playtester, game designer, and just a general jack-of-all-trades-guy. Once playtesting began in early 2023, player feedback further refined my vision. Plus, maintaining a healthy work-life balance is the most important thing you can do as a game dev.

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Brand Game Development

JANUARY 25, 2021

I’ve written before about the usefulness of documenting your playtesting. It contains both pragmatic advice and a primer to the mindset I want you to take into playtesting. Now your game is ready for blind playtesting. Send your game to new blind playtesters. Need help on your board game? Don’t interfere.

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Playtesting Games Mechanics Editing 130

Keith Burgun

APRIL 27, 2023

I notice it with my playtesters that all of us are sincerely way more excited to play. I’m doing a bunch of playtesting recently on all eight characters because I want them to be as awesome as possible for the launch of the Kickstarter in a few months. By contrast, this version consistently gets way more positive reactions.

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Dev Playtesting Games Development 52

Ask a Game Dev

DECEMBER 14, 2023

Then playtest your changes and see how things feel. Then gather some friends, playtest the game, and see if it feels good. Short questions: Ask a Game Dev on Twitter Long questions: Ask a Game Dev on Tumblr Frequent Questions: The FAQ How does the game experience change if you halve the price of every property?

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Playtesting Dev Build Game Designer 52

Game Analytics

FEBRUARY 14, 2023

Playtesting is crucial at this point. And many of the regular tricks that devs use to save on rendering costs are lost when building VR games. “It When we asked Schell Games what they’re using, they recommended User Testing for their playtesting, and GameAnalytics for collecting quantitative data. You may have to get creative.

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Ask a Game Dev

MAY 5, 2023

This is where playtesting comes in. We typically run playtests as often as possible in order to ferret out these issues so that we can adjust them if they are too egregious. Short questions: Ask a Game Dev on Twitter Long questions: Ask a Game Dev on Tumblr Frequent Questions: The FAQ What is the FANTa project?

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Playtesting Dev Content Texture 52

DameDev.tv

DECEMBER 12, 2022

Rick has more than 14 years experience in the game dev industry, working on IP's that include Mario, Transformers, Captain America and Mortal Kombat. Until next time, happy dev'ing! He's done it all, from Game Designer, Producer, Creative Director and Executive Producer to GameDev.tv's

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Ask a Game Dev

JANUARY 23, 2024

Whenever I do solo dev work, the feature that always takes the longest and tends to require the most work to get something playable by actual players is the UI. Small-team dev also tends to build more system-driven games because it's more dev-time-efficient than creating single-use narrative-driven content.

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Astral Clock Tower Studios

SEPTEMBER 29, 2021

We're so happy you're joining us for another epically magical installment of the Kristala Dev Blog! This is the place where we break down all aspects of development for 3D Dark Fantasy ARPG Kristala—an indie game in developed by the wildly talented dev team behind women-owned indie games studio, Astral Clocktower Studios. Level Design.

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DameDev.tv

OCTOBER 7, 2022

Industry veterans Rick Davidson & Tim Ruswick* are joined by Stephen Hubbard to understand how he got started in game dev, see what he’s been up to since we last saw him, discuss how to launch your first game and play his new game, Tilecraft. for people to playtest and provide feedback. that it really stuck!

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Dev Bug Games Media 52

Ask a Game Dev

JUNE 4, 2024

It’s important to get playtesters who aren’t familiar with the puzzle to test it, especially noting any frustration points. Show the player the way first, point out the necessary elements to complete it, and then let the player make those connections and solve it. Got a burning question you want answered?

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Puzzle Playtesting Advertising Dev 52

Brand Game Development

NOVEMBER 28, 2016

Through playtesting, you can answer the question “do the mechanics suit the theme?”. Figure out the theme you want to capture, try building it through mechanics, then playtest and tweak until you successfully captured your desired theme. The post Theme vs. Mechanics appeared first on Brandon the Game Dev.

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Mechanics Playtesting Concepts Art 100

Brand Game Development

APRIL 7, 2017

I’m trying something different on the Dev Diary. My hope with the Dev Diary series is that by being really direct and transparent about my own development experiences, you’ll see how I respond to real problems. We’re in this together, game devs. Key Takeaways for Game Devs. This is a teaching blog.

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Mechanics Dev Simulation Games 130

Brand Game Development

JUNE 3, 2019

You can further pare down journey maps and empathy maps to very specific scenarios and instances which create many playtesting questions. Playtesting in this stage of game design is related to user research in UX design. The post Why Gamification Makes Everything Else More Fun appeared first on Brandon the Game Dev.

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Brand Game Development

APRIL 27, 2020

Two groups that come to mind are the Tabletop Game Playtesters Guild and Card & Board Game Designers Guild. The post 6 Ways to Find Play-Testers for Your New Board Game appeared first on Brandon the Game Dev. Remember: they’re doing you a huge favor! Finally, go in prepared. Visit your local game store.

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Demo Playtesting Simulation Advertising 130

Brand Game Development

MARCH 9, 2020

Watch your playtesters’ reactions. With so many issues, it seems unlikely that Monopoly was thoroughly playtested. At the very least, it wasn’t playtested to modern standards. The post 7 Lessons from Monopoly for Aspiring Board Game Designers appeared first on Brandon the Game Dev.

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Game Design Game Designer Playtesting Games 130

Ask a Game Dev

DECEMBER 20, 2022

It’s important to get playtesters who aren’t familiar with the puzzle to test it, especially noting any frustration points. Short questions: Ask a Game Dev on Twitter Long questions: Ask a Game Dev on Tumblr Frequent questions: The FAQ. Got a burning question you want answered?

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Puzzle Playtesting Advertising Dev 52

PreMortem.Games

FEBRUARY 7, 2024

After launching Jumplight Odyssey in August of 2023 the studio failed to secure additional funding and was forced to lay off the entire game’s dev team in November. Three years later the situation at League of Geeks has changed drastically. Many of us have been in the industry for a long time. “Our

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Studios Concepts Playtesting Development 145

Brand Game Development

MAY 1, 2017

You can keep a dev diary. If something slips through your playtesting, it might very well be caught in the review stage. appeared first on Brandon the Game Dev. There’s a lot of ways to suggest that your game is going to be good. You can release a free PNP version. You can give it gorgeous art.

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Games Playtesting Dev Prototyping 130

Brand Game Development

OCTOBER 23, 2017

I’ve split it into five sections for your convenience: How Ben, Sarah, and Will Got Started How Working in a Team Feels The Downsides of Teamwork Communication in a Team Advice for New Game Devs. Sarah: It was also in 2013 that we met Ben and were playtesters for his game Tower , which he launched on Kickstarter early in 2014.

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Prototyping Playtesting Games Game Design 130

PreMortem.Games

FEBRUARY 19, 2024

This article is part of the game-dev advice newsletter Levelling the Playing Field by Rami Ismail. ” does not give them same context as “In playtests we found that a turn-based paradigm fits the prototype best, which answers questions raised about the prototype’s gameplay last week.”

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Writing Communications Point and Click Prototyping 104

Radiator Blog

SEPTEMBER 4, 2021

These huge labor-intensive maps are hard to make for a variety of reasons, but in this particular context, the most relevant problem is that playtesting the same hand-tuned encounter repeatedly quickly drains its charm and it becomes difficult to gauge whether it's still interesting or not.

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Grumpy Gamer

NOVEMBER 20, 2020

For me to get a new playtest or (more importantly) a dev engine build can take 15-30 minutes. To compile the Windows build on Azure takes between 6 and 15 minutes which is crazy since I can compile the game locally in 1-2 minutes. Same with the Mac build.

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Grid Sage Games

DECEMBER 22, 2023

In previous years I’ve opened the review with a collage of dev images of varying themes and content, but approaching the end of this year we have one major theme that stands out, and that I’ll be writing more about below, so let’s hear it for the interface mockups! Its time has come.

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Beta Alpha Mechanics Build 105

Brand Game Development

SEPTEMBER 24, 2019

Playtest a Ton. The post How to Make Board Game Rules appeared first on Brandon the Game Dev. With all this said, how does one create rules that fulfill the twin purposes of balancing the game and communicating clearly? I have some guidelines. This is non-exhaustive and it just includes what’s on my mind this week.

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Brand Game Development

JANUARY 2, 2018

Every iteration of each game has to be created somehow and there are A LOT of iterations – usually a new one after each playtest, especially in the beginning. Whenever I demo or playtest, I make sure to get the email address of the person, so I can inform them when the Kickstarter starts. Carla: I also do a lot of interviews!

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Playtesting Games Advertising Prototyping 130

Radiator Blog

MARCH 16, 2023

Last month, game industry documentary makers 2 Player Productions debuted a massive 32-part YouTube game dev doc series Double Fine PsychOdyssey , chronicling the development of Psychonauts 2 from its earliest glimmers of pre-production in 2015 to its final release in 2021.

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