The importance of playtesting and early prototyping

tips on creating a better game through constant test iterations.

I would like to take on the subject of how submitting game prototypes to testing while

in their early days can save you a lot of time and spare you from avoidable trouble, while

helping to provide the necessary steam and feedback to create a better user-oriented game.

But first, let’s consider the two main concepts being discussed, which are playtesting

and prototypes. Now, we shall briefly approach both of them so we may have a more solid

foundation when considering their matters.

One could safely define a prototype as a form of an object that is yet to have its final

presentation, but already contains some of its functionalities and has the intended purpose of

the final product; that is, we are speaking of an object/software to be that is able to interact

with an user, albeit partially, and that has a defined and known purpose.

Iteration is a common word in Design and refers to the repetition of a process in order

to achieve a given objective. In such fashion and for example, we may extend the definition’s

range and include, let’s say, the repetition of eating less in order to lose weight. Take the word

as a kind of routine that builds upon itself, in which the later results are influenced by the

previous ones, in a linear route to a given goal.

Now, the relation of those things to game development is that, no matter if the game

is analog or digital, each time you create a new version of your work during development, a

new prototype will emerge. This will only change when your product goes live, meaning it has

reached its first version ready to be released to a wide audience, and it is the game’s release

that defines its earlier iterations as prototypes and its post-launch iteractions as updates.

Also, one can say that each new version of a work is a form of iteration on itself, for

those development states all share the same purpose, which is to become a final game, and

evolve by bringing new content to the previous build, either by correction and/or addition.

I believe that anyone who has tried to develop a game has realized, probably at early

times of the creation cycle, that making games is many times more complex than playing

them. Actually, this is one of the common facts that make many aspiring game developers,

who entered the field because they are good players, quit. This complexity, added to the many

problems that a small team or lonely developer can face, is likely responsible for the

premature death of many games, some of them very interesting.

Constant iterations and early prototyping can be a game-saver because the more

contact your game has with its audience before being released, the more it may be suited to

appeal to their tastes or, on the other hand, the more it may be shaped to make sense to

them, reflect their views and meaningfully communicate with them.

Let’s further elaborate on that.

It is much less expensive and troublesome to halt and change a bad design decision

while it is underway, when no money has been spent on creating the final components of the

game nor fine prints of its pieces have been ordered. Think about it: wouldn’t you rather save

money and time by stopping doing something wrong now than later?

And, as you may know, time and financial resources are something very valuable

everywhere, mostly in small game development, where both are scarce. A small thing such as

playtesting your low-fidelity prototype to a small audience can spare you from a lot of

problems later.

Not only that, but think that one of the most important traits of a game designer is his

ability to listen and perceive players’ reactions during a gaming session. I cannot stress enough

that, to me, an accomplished design lies in the thin line between self-expression and its

adjustment to other people’s needs, through careful consideration on players’ feedback.

This doesn’t mean that you, as a designer, won’t be able to have freedom of

experimentation – even because people sometimes don’t want what they say they do – or that

you’ll have to adapt your game to its audience’s needs to the point that it will look disfigured:

there is no use to a game that is deaf to its audience, for it will not be played, nor to a game

that caters so much to a given group that just fails to innovate and to have a personality of its

own.

Early prototyping and playtesting will also allow you to discard bad ideas without the

deep commitment, be it monetary or emotional, to finish a game. A very common mistake

among beginning game developers it to go too far in their creative process without actually

showing their works to other people, or to ignore their feedback while believing that the

audience didn’t understand the work being created: avoid that.

I hope that this short article may have stressed the importance of critically analyzing

your work, accepting good critiques from reliable sources and of the need that every designer

has to create works that actually mean something to a given audience, making them artistic

ways of representing reality, instead of autistic monologues that no one grasps.

Test early, test often, listen to what your players have to say and, most importantly,

observe them while playing without drawing attention to yourself. It is important for you to

act as a birds photographer, who has to avoid interfering at all in order make its subjects relax

and act naturally.