industry practice - game beta testing and feedback

Beta Testing and Feedback

This blog contains all information about beta testing - what it is and how we used it. As well as this, It also contains a feedback survey we conducted based on the people who played through our game, and the feedback we were given from them!

What is Beta Testing?

Similar to Alpha Testing, this is another way of testing playing through a game. Beta testing is conducted after alpha testing, and is usually a more finalised and polished version of the game. Unlike it alpha testing where the game is still in development, during beta testing the game is nearing completion. However despite the game previously being tested and almost complete, that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be test played. Game testing during a beta build is just as important as during Alpha, as this version of the game is usually just before its official release. Feedback is important during this period, as any last minute ideas or changes that need to be made can be spotted or suggested by game testers before the official release. This ensures that on release, the game is of a high standard, and that there are no bugs, glitches or small errors that might take away from the playthrough experience.

How we will Beta Test our Game

For our game, we asked a group of our peers and friends if they would play through our game, and when complete to fill out a Feedback Survey we created. This survey will allow for us to gather information and feedback about our game. as well as see what people liked and disliked. We also wanted to know if people felt our game was appropriate and also if they had any suggestions for things we could add or change.

In class, there was a lesson dedicated to beta testing, where everyone could play through each others games. However, our game wasn't in a position to be beta tested yet, and we really wanted to make sure it was perfect before we allowed for it to be beta tested. This was mainly due to having a few problems with our group and work, but we discussed as a group and decided we would have our beta testing complete by the following week of that class. We managed to gather a group of people to play our game for us, and give us some feedback. We asked a few people in our class, as well as some of our other friends too to get an outsiders opinion, who didn't know about our brief and game development etc.

Creating Feedback Forum

Katie created a feedback form on google forms for us to attach to our Itch.io page to gather feedback from the people who played through it for us. We as a group discussed what type of questions we should ask on the poll, and decided on a small selection. We wanted to know what people liked and didn't like, If they felt we represented mental illness accurately and respectfully, if our game was suitable for the target audience age we decided on, if they felt the length was good and any other feedback they could provide or wanted to give. This feedback would allow us to see what other people thought of our game, as well as things that could help us improve or change features.

Link to our form:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeHX7inPxhE4UMfNQJ0woFALr3Lj8DMcfwedAQZN96d25G9Tw/viewform?pli=1

Our Feedback Responses

Below, is a list of all the feedback responses we got. Most people had a lot of really nice things to say, which we were really happy about. As well as this, some people pointed out a few issues they noticed or even suggested some ideas of things we could add! These were all really helpful to us, and we planned to discuss everything in more detail together after we had got all our feedback responses back so we could go over it as one and make notes of what people had to say.