ah teaches game design and development (Play play play! lecture)

Play play play!

Lecture outline

Planning and running playtesting of a game. Lecture slides will be made available on the day of the lecture.

Let's play some games!

Debugging

Let's do a little bit of debugging with your games at this point. Please open up your games and let's try:

Playtesting

Playtesting helps us to see if our game is playable, balanced, and 'fun'. Playtesting is iterative.

Iterative model

Keeping playtesting in the loop helps reinforce the game is heading in the right direction:

• Prototype
• Playtest
• Evaluate
• Iterate

Playtesting stages

At different stages of playtesting you may have different audiences participating. From "Playtesting" (Fullerton, 2024):

• Playtesting on your own — appropriate for testing the core loop or minimum playable prototype.
• Playtesting with confidants — appropriate for a minimum playable prototype.
• Playtesting with the target audience — important for exploring rules and refinement.

Playtest parts

Introduction

This portion is meant to help introduce participants to the playtest, provide context and clarify what you will be recording and capturing.

Playtest parts

Preferences

Try to understand a bit more about their preferences and experiences with games to help you frame their feedback and experiences better.

Playtest parts

Playtest

The playtest session where you have them play a portion of your game. Some options:

• Think Aloud
• Play and Ask
• Screen/video capture

Playtest parts

Questions

Here we want to explore their experience with the game focusing on interest, difficulty and understanding. Calling back to their experiences in the playtest can be useful to frame your questions (i.e. I saw you got frustrated by x, why?)

Today's critical play

We will be playing 'This War of Mine' and considering the game socially/culturally.

Critical play

• What are the aesthetics of this game?
• What is the narrative of the game?
• What defines this game as 'a game'?

Questions?

Any questions about the critical play reflection?

Code tutorial

Today's tutorial covers making arrays.

Arrays

Multi-dimensional arrays

To the computers!