Quote:Originally posted by Zwilnik
You should always play your own games (if you're not writing them for you to enjoy, who else will enjoy them ?) but you should always get feedback from trusted testers. My particular group of testers can make a single line print statement crash They're also good at knowing what sort of data is most important and what to note down.

You're very lucky. I've always found it hard to find testers who could offer constructive criticism - you know, something other than "I like it" or "It sucks" - especially amongst non-programmers. I did most of my early game programming in the days before the internet was popular, so I had to test my games by playing them myself.

But hey, if you're not going to play your own games, why should anybody else?

Most H2O testers say "It's so cute", "Do something about the randomly generating music. It sucks.", or "LOL! That's hilarious!". For Flash games, you must test them on like every platform from Linux to Mac OS 8 to Windows XP Pro to Palm OS 5.

Quote:Originally posted by Komick
You're very lucky. I've always found it hard to find testers who could offer constructive criticism - you know, something other than "I like it" or "It sucks" - especially amongst non-programmers. I did most of my early game programming in the days before the internet was popular, so I had to test my games by playing them myself.

But hey, if you're not going to play your own games, why should anybody else?

give me your game, I am the best for what you need, just ask Dr. Light

Quote:Originally posted by skyhawk
give me your game, I am the best for what you need, just ask Dr. Light

Thanks, I'll hold you to that. The last game I wrote was in HyperCard, some 9 yrs ago... so nothing needs testing just yet. Right now I'm trying to model a multi-agent simulation based on a simplified version of Maslow's heirarchy of needs. Not really a game, but could be fun to watch.

I definitely would have to vouch for skyhawk here, he's great. Jabber and my other guy are great too, but skyhawk's turnaround is fast, yet amazingly technical and thourough. Jabber and my other are definitely needed as well also though, cause they catch different stuff and also might give another vital angle or opinion on the problem. Plus, they're my OS9 testers. So, make sure you have more than one tester, and make sure skyhawk is one of them. You'll do good to snag jabber as well.