Playtesting before Submission

[Echo Nomad]

Since it's been brought up in the "do you play submitted games" thread, How many times do you playtest your game before submission? If you do, what are the more common errors that you uncover?

[Red Dragon]

Re: Playtesting before Submission

I havent even finished the intro yet! I still go through for spelling errors, event loops, and basically anything that is not supposed to go in there. I think it is more likely the reason people have demos on this website. Like how you have people critique your essays. You may not notice the errors but somone else will.

[Rodak]

Re: Playtesting before Submission

Mostly my playtesting is done to make sure complex things work properly.

And to see how wildly unbalanced my fights are.

I use the debug menu to make sure variables are set to their proper values when a complex event depending upon them is malfunctioning. If not, I can see what they are and that often points to the problem (can't be specific as there is no single, universal use for variables).

Also because unexpected things pop up in test play!

The Unexpected is the main reason to test play (in my opinion).

Peace.

[Manji]

Re: Playtesting before Submission

i playtest my games constantly. it's really very tiresome for me, but worth it when i see everything come together.

[Vonwert]

Re: Playtesting before Submission

You have to gametest it yourself at least 2 or 3 times, then have at least two other people gametest it, then when you have fixed all bugs, gametest it yourself again.

It is the best way to catch those elusive bugs.

[Crimson Knight]

Re: Playtesting before Submission

I playtest my games constantly, over and over and over and over and over and over to make sure everything works properly, or close to it. It's kind of embarrassing to have someone play your game, and then find bugs you obviously missed.

[Hedrum]

Re: Playtesting before Submission

I playtest all of the time. I try to search for grammer errors and I try to make sure that the game is possible and runs smoothly. For other things, I'm just going to let the other testers decide...

[Alutra]

Re: Playtesting before Submission

giving an exact number of times to playtest is tough, because when you go back through your game, you find things you want to fix, AND you also find things you want to make better. For example, a scene with dialoge; may have sounded great as you were typing it in, but in the context of the game it's just off of what it should be.....or what it could be. So, then you go and "improve" something...and inevatably in the prosess of changing things you may have unknowingly created a completely new problem that you wouldn't discover untill you started the game completly over from the beginning and played all the way through to the end. So, you'll have to test it again. Remember, just fixing a part of a game may cause other problems, depending on the complexity of your game.

Q: HOW MANY TIMES SHOULD YOU PLAYTEST YOUR GAME?

A: (ALL OF THE FOLLOWING):

1) WHEN YOU HAVE PLAYED IT FROM BEGINNING TO END WITHOUT FINDING ANY BUGS. IF YOU CHANGE ANYTHING, THEN THIS IS NOT YOUR FINAL PLAYTEST!

2) WHEN YOU HAVE PLAYED IT FROM BEGINNING TO END AND YOU ENJOYED YOUR GAME. YOUR GAME EXPRESSES YOU.

3) WHEN YOU HAVE PLAYED IT FROM BEGINNING TO END AND YOU HONESTLY FEEL THAT A STRANGER WOULD ENJOY IT, SO THAT THERE ARE NO "BORING" PARTS. JUST ONE FUN/INTERESTING/ENTERTAINING PART SEEMLESSLY JOINED TO THE NEXT. IT IS BETTER TO HAVE A SHORT, FUN GAME THEN A LONG BORING ONE.

4) TRY TO DO THINGS THAT YOU MAY NOT HAVE THOUGHT OF...SOME PLAYERS GO LOOKING FOR BUGS ON PURPOSE. LIKE, ABUSING THE USE OF A PARTICULAR ITEM, OR LOOKING FOR A WAY TO EXIT AN AREA WHERE THEY SHOULDN'T BE ABLE TO, OR TRYING TO TRIGGER EVENTS TO HAPPEN BEFORE THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO. ALSO, DONT MAKE AREAS OF A GAME WHERE THERE IS NOTHING INTERESTING TO INTERACT WITH. EVERY AREA SHOULD HAVE A PURPOSE, EVEN IF ONLY A SMALL ONE.

5) THE BATTLE SYSTEM IS BALANCED AND INTERESTING. BE CREATIVE AND CREATE LOTS OF MONSTERS, SPELLS, SKILLS, ITEMS, WEAPONS, EQUIPMENT, EVENTS!, WAYS TO START A BATTLE, WAYS TO END A BATTLE, OUTCOMES OF EVENTS BASED ON BATTLES. CREATE DRAMA SURROUNDING THE BATTLE. MAKE THEM MEAN SOMETHING.

6) WHEN YOU HAVE PLAYED IT FROM BEGINNING TO END AND YOU FEEL LIKE YOU (AS A PLAYER) ACCOMPLISHED SOMETHING WITHIN THE TIME IT TOOK TO COMPLETE THE GAME. ALSO, GIVING THE FLEXABILITY TO FEEL LIKE YOU COULD PICKUP THE GAME AND PLAY JUST A SMALL CHUNK OF IT AND FEEL LIKE YOU ACCOMPLISHED SOMETHING EVEN IN A SMALL PERIOD OF TIME.

IF YOU HAVE DONE ALL OF THIS, THEN YOU SHOULD UPLOAD IT AND CALL IT A "FULL" GAME

[ErikaFuzzbottom]

Re: Playtesting before Submission

TURN OFF ALL CAPS, PLEASE.

Anyway, when I'm creating a game, I constantly playtest the game when in the middle of or finishing a scene/section of my game. Then once more when the game is finished, trying out all sorts of random stuff I wasn't thinking of doing when creating the game to see if something could be done that creates a bug, and then let someone else playtest it while I go through yet another playtest.

The bugs I've found:
Typos of various types
Repeating events
A command I forgot
Doing something the "wrong way"
Using wrong Switch/Flag/Variable
Wrong page conditions
Inputting the wrong amount for something
"fatal" bugs that prevent the player from continuing at all
Forgetting to reset something like camera positions

And probably some other stuff. There's plenty of ways to mess up when creating your game.

[Splitter]

Re: Playtesting before Submission

I playtest alot.
And I find alot to fix.

Speeking of which, has anyone had something work if it is tested by itself, but doesn't work if you play through the game?

[Alutra]

Re: Playtesting before Submission

Many, many times. especialy when the game is less "linier" and more open pathed or has random events.

[KennyKen]

Re: Playtesting before Submission

Alutra, your previous post was well put.
I completely agree.

I want something unique in every field, town and dungeon.
Man, sometimes I love RPGM3
sometimes, well....