Playtest 2

Overview:

Playtest 2 was critical in determining if the feedback and changes made since playtest 1 have had any effect on the game’s experience. Coming into this playtest I knew I had worked on improving the clarity, pacing and player feedback systems and was keen to see the impact of these changes.

The key changes in this playtest were:

• Simplified game loop to ensure players can play the game without the help from any developer
• Bug fixes with the click and drop mechanic to avoid the previous issues with misplacements and snapbacks
• Restart function now updates UI to improve clarity and player understanding.

As you will see this prototype was more about making existing features usable, functional, and enjoyable instead of adding more mechanics.

Playtest 2 results:

Despite the clearer UI and better placement logic, players still couldn’t grasp what resources were and which were needed to progress in the game. From our reports several testers made it to day 5-6 and failed without knowing the reason why.

There were mixed opinions within the playtesters as some thought that the 8/8 food on day 2 meant they were safe for the round, whereas others were not aware that arms was even a requirement. Again, coming away I’m now aware that numerical indicators are not enough and there needs to be some sort of broadcast or system to inform players of requirements.

One bug that I had thought I had fixed appeared again. When Sophie played the game she noticed she failed due to having no food even though she had placed characters in the food camp. When we dug through my script we saw I did implement the fix however, as you will see in the script it was due to the execution order that caused the player to fail. The issue was that resources were being updated after the checks which led to false positives for failing to obtain enough food resources. 

Team Communication:

Building upon playtest 1s experience it was decided that Anna and Rosie will prepare a bug report and survey forms whilst i was responsible for the setup and real time bug fixing. After recording some of the feedback we were able to determine that most bugs had been fixed and the only thing we were left to sort out was this issue of UI and game clarity. 

Reflections and Final Thoughts:

Playtest 2 felt very successful, the fact that there wasn’t much to note down speaks volumes. We had significantly reduced the issues and bugs and have left us in a perfect place to evolve this game into something we can be happy with. However, I have learnt my lesson in that I need to really be clear with how I’m communicating the systems. The players need to actually understand everything and it not be a guessing game as to what to do and how to progress, they need to enjoy and fully immerse themselves in the gameworld.

This playtest has put in place my new goals for this project:

• Rebuild core systems to avoid silent failures
• Structure UI to have improved clarity
• Invest more time in learning UX design, not just back-end development

Going forward, if i can accomplish each of these tasks I know that Those Left Behind can actually become the game we all envisioned at the start of this project.