Hey everyone! On January 8th, we wrapped up our first playtest for Chop Chop Guys and we wanted to share some of the results with you as well as let you know our next plans.
Initially, we had planned for just a couple of our friends and acquaintances to come and play the game with us, just to make sure it runs on different computers. But we were curious to see how streamers on Twitch would react to Chop Chop Guys, so we reached out to a small list of streamers who recently streamed games similar to ours. Out of the 20 people we contacted, 9 responded and it was really cool! Some of them immediately streamed the game, recorded videos or made TikTok clips. Seeing other people take an interest in something you've been working on for a long time is really motivating! To make things even more exciting, one of them showed the game to their friend, who turned out to be TheNinjaProXD. He started streaming Chop Chop Guys on his channel and even posted a link to our Discord server in his chat. As a result, our Discord server grew from practically nothing to 150 people! Another guy, monodemando, also posted a link to us on his Discord server and we got a few more people from there too. Now, both monodemando and TheNinjaProXD are helping us with moderating the server, for which we are incredibly grateful. In the end, instead of a few of our friends, over 1200 people signed up for the playtest, with 800 of them actually playing the game.
Interestingly, the majority of the players were from the Spanish-speaking community. This is probably because Spanish-speaking streamers were the most active in responding to our call to show the game before the playtest began.
Just to clarify, what exactly we were testing during the Playtest. To avoid confusion with terms like Alpha version or Beta version, let's just say that the version we tested is at least one year away from the full release of the game. Essentially, this was the first playable prototype, where the basic game mechanics (movement, dash, pushing) are working and there's a minimal set of levels to convey the essence of the game.
What We Took Away from the Playtest Results
- The overwhelming majority of feedback was overwhelmingly positive. People are really enjoying the game. Yeah!
- Not many people understood that this was not a finished game, but rather a barely functioning prototype. We'll have to prepare the announcements better in the future. But can you imagine what it will be like when we're finished?
- A couple of silly bugs. For example, v-sync was turned off by default, which caused some computer fans to make noise (because the game doesn't limit FPS and the video card is working at maximum capacity).
- Many requested a mobile version. Currently, we're not thinking about it. We plan to develop the game exclusively on Steam for at least the next 6 months.
- Everyone wants more maps and costumes. Definitely. We're already working on new maps and costumes.
- The game is difficult. For now, we're not doing anything about it. We'll see how quickly players progress from "this is incredibly difficult" to "this is too easy, can we get something more serious?
What We'll Be Doing Next and What We're Doing Right Now
Going forward from the first prototype and based on your feedback, we'll be moving ahead with 2 or 4-week iterations. We're not sure yet how quickly we'll be able to release new updates, but we'll figure that out as we go. In each update, we'll be working on specific parts of the game such as multiplayer, controller support, finalizing graphics for certain levels or adding new levels, etc. Once an update is ready, we'll be running a new playtest, usually starting on Thursday evening and ending on Sunday night. This is how we'll be developing Chop Chop Guys for the next six months.
Right now, we're working on various improvements to the game's internal workings that we've been putting off for a while. It'll take another couple of weeks. Unfortunately, from the player's perspective, this won't result in a significant visible outcome, but it's essential that we do this now so that development can proceed faster in the future. Among other less noticeable things, we'll fix bugs that we saw during the first playtest, ensure good support for different gamepads, and create a couple of new skins.
That's it for today. What can you do while you wait for the next playtest to begin? For example, you can subscribe to our Twitter and Instagram where we post funny pictures of the development process and where you'll also be able to follow important news about the project.
Cheers!
Chop Chop Guys Dev Team