Play Testing And Beta Testing – Will It Explode?

Having friends and family play HedgeHogers and seeing what they really thought about it was both scary and fun. As I watched them play, it was very difficult not to tell them what they should be doing but I kept my mouth shut and tried to learn from what was going on. Most people got stuck on the first slightly tricky level, which was good. However, some people sailed through some harder levels first time, which was not so good. Tweaks were needed to many levels. While play testing is probably always a good idea, it’s especially important when you are one person designing the whole game – you need outside input. Some used their finger, some used their thumb, some turned the sounds off, some bobbed their heads along to the music. One of my favourite quotes so far from a player is: 

While I gathered a lot of useful insights into how people interacted and played with HedgeHogers, my most exciting take-away was how much they enjoyed it. Nearly everyone commented that they loved the gorgeous graphics and funny sound effects, which was nice to hear. But every single one of them laughed out loud, punched their fist in the air with satisfaction and would not put the game down when asked to. In one case the iPhone had to be physically removed from the player’s hand as they had to leave!

When I was happy that the game wasn't too easy or too hard and had a good dollop of fun, it was time to see if it would explode under pressure. From the start of the project I’d been a bit obsessed about bugs that might sneak past me and somehow crash people’s devices when they bought the game. I had done all the analysis and profiling I could, but was still worried. 

I got HedgeHogers up and running on TestFlight and sent an initial build out to my wonderfully patient testers. The majority of issues identified were from assumptions I had made about how people would play the game. The feedback allowed me to add more polish and to ensure the player did not get confused. The beta testers also found spelling mistakes, which again you can’t see after spending more than 3 years on a project.

After waiting 3 or so days to allow TestFlight to process crash reports, I checked and there were none. I was delighted but hoped that there weren’t other issues that didn’t actually cause crashes. Reports from the beta testers after a few weeks indicated that the game was very stable with no slowdowns, jitters or crashes. I want to say a big thank you to all the play testers and beta testers for their hard work and also for the excitement of watching their reactions. I’m delighted the beta testing has not thrown up anything major, but am still nervous about global deployment!