Hello, Trailblazers!
For the past month and a half we've been hard at work cooking our very first playtest ever! We wanted to share the process with us, and of course, talk about the future! So grab a cozy drink, sit down, and let's get to the issue!
Setting the bases for the first public playtest
Developing a game takes a lot of iteration, a lot of coming and going, and a lot of rethinking things. Weaving player opinion into this process is a surefire way to elevate the game to greater heights! At Strangers, we were certain we want to involve the players in the development process, and have been doing so since the early times of Trailblazers: Into the March, but it was time to take a way more direct approach by letting people actually play a bit of our game for the first time!
To that end, we devised a first external playtest focused on the combat in the game. We prepared a build that included some battles, one boss battle and a secret boss after beating all the base ones! We made sure the build was stable, and that it included enough content so that players could get a good idea of what playing Trailblazers combat would feel like. Of course, these builds are super early work, so they will be improved upon tirelessly, and the final version might be very different!
We prepared a very complete initiation document walking players-to-be through the basic game mechanics, the game controls, the weapons that would be available, some hints on combat, and the very essential feedback survey we kindly asked them to fill in after playing!
Choosing the playtesters!
Long before the playtest started, we had already been crafting a list of playtesters. Because the game is still in the early stages of development, and since this was our first foray into playtesting, this first playtest was comprised mostly of our family and friends. We also included some longtime members of the Discord community, and after a few days, we also gave the chance to random players in our Discord server, and members of the FTL subreddit who would be familiar with the mechanics and feel of Trailblazers.
Since this was our first time doing an external playtest, the outreach process was organic and a little bit clunky! We contacted every one of the participants manually, processed their NDA individually and handed each of them a unique key. We want to take this chance to apologize deeply if we have accidentally missed someone in this storm of mails, sorry! We have learned from this and are looking into ways to automatize and improve this process so we can focus entirely on your feedback and on working on the game instead of being forced to spend the day in e-mail turn-based combat.
We would like to, of course, continue expanding our list of playtesters! New eyes can see new things, and the more eyes we have on the game the better our chances to identify and address issues and problems. That said, we're a teeny tiny team, so we have to keep the numbers manageable with our current forces, and we might have to alter some aspects of the playtests, like the way we collect feedback. We hope you'll understand! We will always do our best to listen to all your feedback, though, promise!
What we learned
We asked playtesters to fill in a form after playing so they could give us their feedback and opinion on a set of specific questions. Out of the 65 people who received a key to try the game, 41 players answered the survey, and we're endlessly grateful to those who did! We thoroughly read all the feedback provided, and we arranged them form replies neatly in a set of analytical graphics so we could really take in the data. We have more than 10 hours of player footage from our playtester, and we’ve sat through it like one does with a good movie!
We'd love to make an entire post on the analytics of this first playtest in the future, but for the time being we can tell you that most people enjoyed the combat, and many found the game to be just the right difficulty or even a bit too easy! We also learned the UI is not necessarily easy to take in for all players: with the UI being front and center in games, we're making changes and adjustments to it immediately, in hopes for the next playtest it'll be clearer and easier to comprehend for everyone!
We also discovered the most liked enemy Landship by the playestesters was the Urchin! Congratulations to our favorite Landship of the month, even if as an enemy!
Most of the playtesters were really in agreement that the art was great, and our hearts are warmed by your positive feelings towards it!
We got a lot of clear indicators and actionable pointers on ways the combat can be improved, and so we'll be working hard to make the most out of your precious opinions to make Landship combat as great and fun as can be!
Future playtests?
If you've gotten this far, this is your reward: yes, our dears! There will be more public playtests in the future and we'd be happy to hear from more people, our existing playtesters and new ones! Since we're still refining our ways and processing this one, we're not able at the time to provide a date for the next one, but we'll make sure to reach out to more people once we're ready for it! It's a good idea to follow us on our social media, and also to stay tuned to our Discord server! We will also make sure to post here, but you know us devs tend to naturally inhabit Discord servers.
Future playtests might iterate over features that have already been playtested, like combat, or might cover different features and game mechanics. It's still early to promise you anything, Trailblazers, but rest assured you'll have more chances to provide direct feedback, test the game and help us in its creation in the future!
Closing words
We want to thank all our playtesters for the precious time they took to play Trailblazers: Into the March and provide us with excellent feedback! We also want to thank all the people who asked to be part of the Playtest and couldn't make it this time: we're sorry, we'll do our best to include you in the future!
Thank you as well to our loving community, who support us and cheer us on everyday! Let's all keep working to make Trailblazers: Into the March the greatest game ever!
Until then, see you soon, Trailblazers. Stay vigilant in The March.