Closing Loops & Playtesting

Playtest #1, coming soon

Getting ready for this first playtest has been somewhat difficult. The scope of this first playtest will be rather small, however figuring out what that exact scope should be is what’s been eating up most of my time working on it. I’ve been going back and forth on features that seem integral to the first playtest experience, while kicking myself for letting me change the scope… again and again. This is a loop I just haven’t been able to close yet.

With game development being second to my life and job, it’s easy to let myself fall into this trap. My livelihood doesn’t depend on getting something shipped ASAP, so I can afford to take the time to experiment and have fun developing. At the end of the day though, it is still a business that I’d like to step up, and practicing setting scope and not letting scope creep eat me alive is important to do sooner or later.

What’s Brandy Byte Games’ First Project?

The first project I’m set on developing and releasing is a platformer inspired by some of the greats of the 90s/00s platformers/collectathons. The name is still being workshopped, but for the time being, I’ll just call it PSM.

The Scope of Playtest 1

Let’s talk about what’s in scope.

• Basic gameplay flow in place
  • Launch, start game, play, save, exit, etc.
• Small enemy variety
• Basic player movement with abilities
• Short greyboxed level to provide playground for abilities/enemies
• Functional collectible system (major/minor collectibles)

Surprisingly, level design has been the hardest for me to break into. I used to draw up crazy levels for Mario 64 or weird bases for Minecraft (before I owned it). For some reason, I’ve just not been able to channel whatever it was that I had then.

Who will be a part of the playtest?

Since this is Brandy Byte Games’ first game, the playtesters will be limited to friends and family. It will be easier to facilitate play and gather feedback with this set of people, especially considering this will be the first time I’ll be getting feedback on the game (other than from my wife).

What’s next?

It’s pretty simple - I’m going to spend some time nailing down an achievable set of work items for October/November. Once I have those, they’ll go into my project space in GitHub to work on and test before I work on building the game into something I can distribute to the playtesters. Sometimes you just need to set a deadline and stick to it. That’s what the plan is.

Once I can pull this playtest together, I’ll be posting some followups here.