Blog 18 - Answer 2

Playtesting is a necessary part of game design, at both the physical and digital level. 

1.  What is your EQ?

My essential question is: How can a video game be designed to enhance the player's experience? 

2.  What is your first answer? (In complete thesis statement format)

Through the implementation of well-designed and developed characters, the experience of a video game can be enhanced for players.  

3.  What is your second answer? (In complete thesis statement format)

Play-testing regularly is a vital step in the design process to gauge if a game is reaching the designer's player experience goals. 

4.  List three reasons your answer is true with a real-
world application for each.

1. The primary role of a designer is to "advocate for a player"-- focus on making the player experience positive.

To keep the design process from straying too far from the intentional player experience, it's vital that the designer(s) stick to a continual iterative process of design: playtesting, evaluating, and revising. It is vital to test from the very beginning in the project, as testing late in the development cycle (when a game is more "complete" and subsequently thought to be more enjoyable to players) does not allow for much changes or improvements to be made, as time is restricted. 

2. Testing with different audiences/kinds of playtesters throughout different stages of development will bring about different feedback. 

For example, self-testing and testing with strangers will result in two different kinds of results. Self-testing is typically done to figure out how the core mechanics of a game functions, as well as experiment with the concepts the game is focused upon. Testing with strangers, on the other hand, is typically to test the experience of a game, and gives designers honest, unbiased opinions and feedback on the project thus far. 

3. Enjoyable games are games that are "balanced". 

Balancing games is essentially defined as ensuring that the game meets the player experience goals the designer has set for the project. Therefore, playtesting is a huge part of balancing games. Balancing the variables of a game, for example, is vital in ensuring that the game plays out properly. For example, the game Connect Four features a 7x6 game grid, 21 black pieces, and 21 red pieces. Increasing the size of the grid would require an increase in player pieces-- the same goes for digital games. A change in a fundamental concept of a game can, in turn, change other fundamental concepts of it. 

5.  What printed source best supports your answer?

• Fullerton, Tracy. Game Design Workshop. Burlington: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2008. Print.

6.  What other source supports your answer?

• Salen, Katie and Eric Zimmerman. Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2004. Print.

7.  Tie this together with a  concluding thought.

Playtesting, as a whole, can influence a wide variety of areas of game design. However, it's main purpose to ensure that the player experience goals are being met. 

As advocates for a player, it's vital that the designer maintains a consistent relationship with the target players' wants and needs. In order to do so, playtesting is a necessary exercise within the development cycle.