Small Studios + Play testing

Question to all small studios and small budget teams

What is your approach to play testing? How do you reach out to players and get them to playtest your game? Considering it would take few iterations, what percent of budget do you allocate to playtesting?

All of this while not burning your pocket.

 

Typically the forums are a good way to do this, but with so many new posts coming all of the time, it is easy to get buried under them, resulting in no play-testers. I would suggest that the best and absolute cheapest option is to invite friends to play your game. Family is another good alternative if you don't have many friends interested in that type of thing, but If you choose this route, you will most likely be receiving a biased opinion.

Best of luck,

Mwester

 

Start with friends, especially friends that play games of the same genre. Some people get excited at the idea of getting their name in your game's credits. Could also look for facebook groups or forums that cover genre games. Perhaps make it a part of your general awareness campaign you should be starting by offering it as an official closed beta.

 

http://www.meetup.com

There's usually at least one group of gamers or devs nearby who will be happy to playtest games.

 

Social media can be effective. I've found Google+ groups that have app testers; also Reddit and Imgur can bring players rather effectively.

 

I actually went the "small release" route, I simply put my game for free on only one platform: itch.io with big disclaimer
and then went around in various communities to get feedback from other people and I found a few who liked the game enough that they want to continue playtesting it.
Actually I should mention, regarding "investment". I'm not investing money into it, but I'm investing time in talking to those interested and I'm making sure they feel welcome and that I listen to each one of them, no matter how much I agree or disagree with what they say.

 

We've been hitting local conventions as well as areas where our target demographic go & asking people to try the game there & then sign up anyone interested. So far we have about 60 & only 20 are family/friends.
It does take time though & we don't need massive numbers as we aren't running servers to test loads or anything. Plus our game is fairly simple (no physics or anything like that)

 

Friends who are part of your target audience are the best when you have no budget for testing, but be aware that some friends don't want to hurt your fellings and will tell you everything is great even when they think otherwise.