PLAYTESTING. THATS RIGHT.
I signed a nondisclosure agreement, so I can’t divulge any specific details about what i was actually testing, but i’ll say a few things about the overall experience.
After entering halfbrick studios, the second time i’ve entered a game studio, I was ushered into a small room with two people who I knew HAD to be QA staff, seeing as they were running a playtest. That said, these two men struck me immediately as programmers, the likes of which I believe I have been granted extra-sensory ability to detect by being a programmer myself. Anyway, i’m getting sidetracked.
Going into this, I had set out to give them as much accurate, helpful and constructive criticism I could. While the entire thing was made up of coloured boxes, and the same person was used as placeholder art for pretty much every single object, it was as enjoyable as can be expected for the tutorial level of a handheld game. I think I managed to help them iron out quite a few visual feedback issues with the state of the world, not to mention a lot of gameplay suggestions which i’m almost tempted to buy the final game just to find out if they included them. The reason i say “almost” is i don’t actually own a DS, so the game would be worthless to me, and the day i buy a handheld is the day i lose the ability to daydream on public transport.
…where was I? Oh right.
What’s more they were taking all these notes while i wasn’t even doing anything interesting, which I guess is why they have a job and i don’t. That said, I haven’t applied for any game studios yet, and after that playtest I think halfbrick will be one of my best options. I almost wet myself when i think about the possibility of being finished with all this education bullshit. All I want to do is program and get paid for it :\
Or i could NOT program, and get paid for THAT! That would be even better.
….I’ll get back to you.
Shady out.
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