Testing your game with actual players early and often is, according to indie dev Adriaan de Jongh, a necessary evil.
At GDC 2017, he took the stage to deliver a great talk about all the evil data he gathered in 6 years of playtesting 8 games. It was insightful, and an effective means of sharing his ways to avoid useless or confusing data, as well as how he now organizes effective playtests sessions with minimal effort.
After all, both physical and online playtesting are fundamental to game design, but to playtest properly and gather results that are not hard to interpret, not confusing, and not contradicting itself can be tricky business.
If this is something you struggle with, you should know that de Jongh’s talk is now available to watch for free over on the official GDC YouTube channel!
About the GDC Vault
In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its new YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC, GDC Europe, and GDC Next already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Americas