3.1 Solution Evaluation

You'll have people outside your team playtest and evaluate your video game. External playtesting of a game is similar to user testing of a website, app, or device.

Conducting this evaluation will help determine how well your game meets the project challenge criteria (i.e., is your game innovative, engaging, functional, usable, and balanced). Your team will use the evaluation data to identify issues with your game and make improvements before the public presentation.

1. Prepare Survey

   • Save a copy of this survey form in your team's shared folder.

   • Open your saved copy of the survey, and modify the last question to list your game's targeted gaming motivations.

   • Each participant will complete this survey after playtesting your game.

2. Recruit Participants

   • You'll need 3-5 participants to playtest your game in individual sessions.

   • Ideally, the participants should be similar to your target player persona — especially in terms of gaming motivations.

3. Explain Playtesting Process

   • Let the participant know the game is being tested, not the participant.

   • Let the participant know the game is a work-in-progress.

   • Ask the participant to “Think Aloud” while playing the game.

   • Do NOT explain your game because you need to observe first impressions.

4. Observe Playtesting

   • Allow the participant to play the game for about 5-10 minutes.

   • Record notes on issues you see or hear the participant experiencing.

   • If necessary, remind the participant to think aloud while playing.

5. Ask Follow-Up Questions

   • Afterwards, you can ask the participant about specific issues you observed (if you need to better understand why the issue occurred).

6. Administer Survey

   • Open your saved survey, and click the "Preview" icon (at top-right of form) to allow the participant to take the survey.

   • Afterwards, be sure to thank the participant for their time and feedback.

7. Analyze Data

   • After all the participants have completed the playtesting and survey, review your playtesting session notes, and summarize your game's issues in this evaluation findings table. For each issue, you'll estimate its severity, identify a possible fix, and estimate the feasibility and priority of making the fix.

   • Next, open your survey, and click the "Responses" tab (at top) to show the summary of the participants' responses.

   • For each survey question, there will be a histogram (similar to bar chart) showing the distribution of the responses:

     • Ratings of 1 or 2 are negative because the participant either disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement.

     • Ratings of 3 are neutral because the participant neither agreed or disagreed with the statement.

     • Ratings of 4 or 5 are positive because the participant either agreed or strongly agreed with the statement.

     • After each histogram, you’ll see the participants' explanations for their ratings. If these reveal any new issues with your game, add them to your evaluation findings table.

   • Create a document that will contain all the histograms (in order) for your survey data. Hover over the top-right corner of each histogram, click the copy icon, and paste each histogram into the document.

❏ Deliverables

Submit the following for your team:

• Evaluation findings (table of issues)

• Survey results (document with histograms)

example of deliverable