SaED Week 6: Testing Plan and Structure

12/04/21

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, my list of testers, who I am able to observe playing the game and from whom I am able to take notes, is limited. Fortunately, I am able to enlist two of my housemates to play the game and be the testers. Both of them are the ideal types of testers that I needed, as one is very familiar with games and plays them often (veteran), while the other is not familiar and is a more casual game player (novice). This is important to me, as I want the game to be enjoyed and understood by both kinds of people, to make balancing feel natural to players.

Before having my testers play through the game, I shall be leaving the number of lives and amount of gold to be collected set to their default values. From the few alpha tests of the game that I have carried out, the number and amount seem to be reasonable. However, I want to make the game a challenge to satisfy veteran game players, while also feasible and fair to novice players.

Whenever a testing session begins, I will give both players an overview of the game, explain their objective and refer to the controls. I will provide slightly more information to the novice tester due to his lack of experience with Tower Defence games specifically.

The plan is to meet with both testers twice a week to gain as much information as possible. The first session will be on a Monday, with the second being on a Friday. This allows me to analyse and iterate on the information obtained twice during the week. The first session of the week is intended for immediate feedback and to collect as much data in the least amount of time. The second session is for more meticulous testing and analysis, as the weekend allows me to invest more time into exploring and scrutinising the data.

Session one will be spent mostly on short bursts of testing, with no formal questions being asked. Game Analytics, which is a plugin for the Unreal Engine, will be used thoroughly during this session to gain a better insight into the testers’ decisions and accomplishments by monitoring their gameplay. Once this session is over for both testers, the analysis and iteration stages will begin. The data obtained from Game Analytics will be studied and the information gathered will be incorporated into the next version of the game.

Session two will proceed with an updated version of the game that will be played by the testers, having been enhanced by Game Analytics. This session will be longer and more rigorous than the previous one, as multiple playthroughs from both testers will be required in order to get relevant information. Before they play, I will ask each tester to play through the entire level only once, after which they will provide me with their initial thoughts on the experience. During gameplay, they can ask me questions, which I will note down, and I will provide them with answers, before letting them play through the entire level for a second time. During gameplay, I will observe the testers, both on a practical and emotional level, and hopefully gain a sense of the things that make them frustrated or satisfied during certain moments of gameplay.

After both testers have played through the entire level on more than one occasion, I will conduct a semi-structured interview with each of them to generate data that will accompany the data from my observations. These questions will mostly be the same on each occasion, as I am interested to see how their answers differ depending on what was changed in the game. Further questions will be asked by me, if I want the testers to elaborate more on their answers, and I will urge them to ask me questions during this process. Each additional question, which differs from those on my list, will be noted for analysis and to make sure certain questions are not repeated.

Questions to be asked:

1. Did each creep feel imposing but still relatively easy to deal with? Please explain.

2. Did each tower feel useful? Please explain.

3. Were there enough consistent resources to allow for ample experimentation? Please explain.

4. Did the price for towers and their upgrades feel fair? Please explain.

5. Were there any harsh difficulty spikes? Please explain.

6. Did anything strike you as being incredibly unbalanced? Please explain.

7. Did the pacing of waves feel smooth and consistent? Please explain.

8. Did the weaknesses of each tower make up for its usefulness? Please explain.

9. Were you able to understand certain tower/creep synergies? Please explain.

10. Was it immediately clear what purpose each tower and creep served? Please explain.