AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! Meets its First Alpha Tester

This is what an informal playtest session log looks like.

DanR was our first playtester. Here's a photo of his ear, because we didn't ask him for permission to show a photo of the rest of his face.

He can pretty much kick any of our asses at Quake 3. He represents the hardcore demographic (or, at least the 30+ age group within that demographic -- we're aging). Here's what we found when we sat him down with a recent build, complete with fake timestamps:

7:01pm - We sit DanR down and start the game. He's an FPS fan who still plays various games today. His experience today will be similar to that of the most adept gamers. The big lesson: Just because he "gets" something doesn't mean all our players will.

7:02pm - He starts the game and looks around before he jumps, investigating the various edges of the building. Exploration is completely logical, but it's one of those things we (the level designers) never think about. He lands level 1 with no problem.

7:04pm - On Inward Focus, he had some initial successes, then started pushing boundaries. He ended up dead, until he got a handle of things.

7:06pm - DanR expects the player's bounding box to be smaller. He keeps hitting things he doesn't expect to hit. Broken bones from hitting buildings all over the place, for example. (We've since smallened it.)

7:09pm - The final score -- a number that appears in a vacuum -- clearly had no effect on his perception of success. (We've since added a "stars" rating, and have keyed this to level advancement.)

7:10pm - "What if there were things chasing the players? Or others jumping with them?" Or, in general, moving objects. (We since added rotating fan blade-looking things for starters.)

7:15pm - DanR says he didn't notice that the mountain was something he could jump down, at the end of Your Jackhole. (Possible solution: arrows?)

7:16pm - DanR goes for the shiny scoring plates a lot, which is reasonable. DanB and I generally do that as an afterthought, given how little they're worth compared to kisses.

7:18pm - There's no visual indicator that DanR's deployed the parachute! (Solved it by adding a "parachute fan" with sound effect.)

7:22pm - The do-nothing Jellyfish item disappoints DanR. (Solved by removing it.)

7:23pm - DanR claims that the controls are good, and the hyper-nonrealistic aesthetic works. We've received reasonable feedback on the graphics, lately, so I'm not too worried about that. However, I'd like to give it another "bump" before beta.

7:27pm - DanR likes the sense of momentum, and stresses that good level design is paramount. He suggests that we group levels by theme. Waterfalls? If players are inside something dark, would they have night vision? How about doing a run within a structure? (Tunnel?)

7:30pm - DanR experiments with an early parachute deployment. He wanted to be able to land, retract the parachute, then take off again in order to search for secrets. DanB also thought this was a good idea, but perhaps as an unlockable much later? I don't want to spoil the game's sense of motion.

7:33pm - The Inward Focus level is a challenge.

7:34pm - DanR suggests that there should be many levels. Replayability is key. Secrets allow the player to repeat completed runs? (First step in our solution is the experience system.)

7:40pm - DanR asks if there's a benefit to opening your parachute as late as possible. What if there were other avatars? The player currently has no identity at all. (Solution: ?)

7:41pm - It is unclear to DanR how damage is handled. He suggests a blue-becomes-red (hit-points) interface that doesn't distract. Could we write the game to allow players to hit walls and take advantage of the rebound? Broken bones = less control? (No solution as yet -- whether you bounce or die depends on the angle and velocity of the hit.)

7:45pm - DanR suggests a Marioesque tube that shunts you to a different level, if you know the secret. (We can do similar things within the game already. This is a job for... Level Design Man! DanB?)

7:49pm - DanR always tries to "break" a level, in the same way that Tribes players first tried to ski, and Quake players tried to rocket jump. Experiment to learn some neat trick?

7:50pm - "What if you were tiny, or in a video game?" He mentions the waterfall agaon. What other interesting environments can we come up with?

7:55pm - He likes the game, as a whole, and feels that he could sit and play it for a stretch.

This is the first game we're playtesting this rigorously. Already, it's paying off in the ways we've tweaked the alpha. Our next step is another few closed alpha tests, and then an open one. Fingers crossed.