Right now we are making our first experiences with Steam’s Playtest feature with our other game, Food Truck Simulator. After only a couple of days, we are very satisfied with it and we mentioned in the past that we wanted to see if that’s something that we might adapt for Gas Station Simulator in the future, too.
We now made the decision, that we definitely will. Starting most likely with the Shady Deals DLC, we will make it available in its then current state via Playtest ahead of release to get some feedback sooner and have enough time until release to put some of that feedback into the final product. While some things might not work fully yet, we believe giving at least a selected number of players access to the DLC way before its release makes a lot of sense to iron things out early on and get some things noticed before it’s too late.
Sure, a Playtest is not for everyone, it’s basically like a more streamlined beta test, but considering the amount of players that asked us for beta tests before Gas Station Simulator’s release, Steam’s Playtest feature seems like the perfect solution.
It wasn’t that we opposed to the concept of beta testing as such, just that organising it and its handling are quite a lot of work that would take time away from the already busy developers.
With Food Truck Simulator’s Playtest we are seeing now how much less time is necessary to set it up and we will use Playtests a lot more frequently in the future.
The Playtest in Food Truck Simulator is still running, so you might want to participate in it to have a look how it works and what to expect. Just head over there and click the Request Access button.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1160920/Food_Truck_Simulator/
And in case you have forgotten what Shady Deals is about, that’s a quite large DLC we are working on for Gas Station Simulator that will see, among many other things, the return of the uncle with a new business scheme:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1992100/Gas_Station_Simulator__Shady_Deals_DLC/