Playtesting And Iterative Design

 < Day Day Up > 



You'll recall that we said the primary role of the designer is as an advocate for the player. This does not just mean in the early stages of design-the game designer must keep that relationship with the players' needs and perspective throughout the design and production process. Often, as teams work at a project long days and nights for months at a time, they forget the player in their own quest to make the game live up to their vision.

A continual iterative process of playtesting, evaluating and revising is the way to keep the game from straying during that long arduous process of development. Of course, you can't keep changing the game fundamentally or your team will rebel. After all, the goal is to release a product eventually. Figure 8.1 shows how the testing cycle gets tighter and tighter as production moves forward, signifying smaller and smaller issues to solve and changes to make, so that your are merely perfecting the game as the process draws to a close, not changing it fundamentally. This method, of continually testing your assumptions with players, will keep your game on track in the darkest days of production.

You may be thinking: but testing is an expensive process, isn't it? Wouldn't it be better to wait until we have a fully working game-say about the time we have a beta product-and test it then? That way, players will get the best experience. We can't argue against this way of thinking strongly enough. By that time in the process, it is really too late to make any fundamental changes to your game. If the core gameplay isn't fun or interesting, you are stuck with it. You might be able to change some top-level features, but that's it.

We advise playtesting and iterating your design from the very moment you begin. And we can show you how to do it without muchexpense-just your own time and some volunteers. The expense you will save is the cost of changing your game at the very end of production, or releasing a game that doesn't live up to its full potential.

click to expand
Figure 8.1: Model for iterative game design: playtest, evaluate, and revise



 < Day Day Up > 



Game Design Workshop. Designing, Prototyping, and Playtesting Games
Game Design Workshop: Designing, Prototyping, & Playtesting Games (Gama Network Series)
ISBN: 1578202221
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 162

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net