Get Answers to Your Specific Questions
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Prepare a List of Questions You Want to Ask
Create a comprehensive list of questions based on the specific aspects of your game you wish to evaluate during playtesting. Ensure the questions primarily address features that significantly impact the player’s experience, such as gameplay challenge, control systems, or artificial intelligence. Entering a session unprepared and waiting for testers to provide unsolicited feedback may lead to prolonged sessions, as you may waste time formulating relevant questions on the spot. Additionally, it is preferable to ask questions after the playtest rather than during, as interruptions can disrupt the player’s flow. Ensure that playtesters provide feedback promptly after the session, while the experience is still fresh in their memory. Your main objective is to collect actionable feedback that can inform improvements to your game.
Possible questions to ask include:
What aspects of the game were emotionally engaging, and which were not?
Were any gameplay mechanics difficult to understand?
Were the objectives clear? Did you always know what to do?
Which levels were particularly difficult, and why?
Was any character perceived as too powerful?
Was any unit introduced too early in the game?
Was the user interface intuitive?
Did the AI appear intelligent?
Was the camera framing the scene appropriately?
Were the controls easy to use and understand?
If bugs were encountered, was the game still emotionally engaging?
Tips for Handling Questions
When formulating questions, you may instinctively use terms and expressions familiar to you, which may confuse the playtesters. Therefore, ensure that your questions are clear and easy to understand. Keeping them concise will also be helpful.
Avoid overwhelming playtesters with too many questions, as this may lead to fatigue and a desire to end the session prematurely. This can result in unreliable responses given out of impatience rather than genuine reflection.
Having your list of questions reviewed by another person is also highly recommended, as it can help identify unclear or ambiguous wording.
Choose the Right Method to Collect Feedback
There are multiple valid methods for gathering playtesting feedback. The best choice depends on the specific needs of your project.
Live Spectating
Observe playtesters as they engage with your game to directly see and hear their reactions to the gameplay experience. You may also record the session, even if it takes place remotely, by using screen-sharing functionality to monitor what the playtesters see. This approach enables significantly deeper analysis compared to interpreting data obtained through surveys. The advantage of spectating lies in its ability to reveal the actual behaviors and interactions of players, allowing you to identify the real reasons behind their success or failure—insights that may not be captured through self-reported feedback.
Surveys can provide general feedback, but they are limited by the player’s own interpretations, which may not always reflect the true cause of an issue. For instance, a playtester might report that they were unable to progress because they lacked an access code needed to unlock a door. If you rely solely on survey responses, you might conclude that the code was not communicated clearly. However, by observing the playtester during gameplay, you might notice that they opened and closed a message containing the code without reading it. Such observations provide critical insight into user behavior and help determine whether game elements, such as UI presentation or narrative cues, require adjustment.
Watching Recorded Sessions
If live spectating is not feasible, request that playtesters record their gameplay sessions. Ideally, they should also record their facial expressions to help you interpret their emotional responses. A key advantage of this method is the ability to review the footage at any time, allowing for thorough and repeated analysis.
Surveys
Here are some best practices when using surveys:
Use surveys as a complement to live spectating rather than a standalone method. Surveys are most effective for questions that can be answered clearly without much thought.
Ensure players complete the questionnaire immediately after the session while their experiences are still fresh.
Clearly communicate how many questions the survey contains.
Avoid using technical jargon or abbreviations that playtesters may not understand.
Provide a sufficient range of answer options to ensure players can select one that best represents their experience. For example, if a question assumes players encountered a specific character but they did not, include an option for that.
Avoid offering too many choices, which can lead to choice overload.
Similarly, avoid presenting binary options with opposing meanings if the decision is nuanced and not clearly one or the other.
Focus primarily on closed-ended questions with predefined answers to facilitate faster data analysis.
Include some open-ended questions to give playtesters the opportunity to elaborate on their answers. However, limit the number of these to avoid discouraging feedback due to the effort required.
Clean your data before analyzing it. Some responses may not meet your quality criteria and should be removed, such as:
Incomplete responses.
Ambiguous or contradictory answers.
Uniform ratings across all questions, which may indicate disinterest or inattention.
Consider using survey administration software to streamline data collection and analysis.
Do not rely solely on surveys because they are quick and easy to conduct. Making decisions based only on survey results risks drawing incorrect conclusions and implementing ineffective changes.
Interviews
Conduct face-to-face interviews to gain a deeper understanding of the player’s experience. Interviews provide immediate feedback and allow you to observe non-verbal cues, such as tone and body language, which are not available through surveys or written feedback.
Chats
This method is similar to interviews, but conducted remotely via chat. Players test the game on their own device and communicate their feedback through written messages. While less personal than interviews, chats still allow for direct interaction and clarification of specific points.