Comments on: Does having people playtest your game count as a team?

By: jovoc

jovoc — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 19:29:02 +0000

Playtesting is encouraged. Often people will post early builds on the IRC channel or in their status updates to get early feedback.

By: Gaeel

Gaeel — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 18:48:54 +0000

Playtesting isn’t against the rules, as long as the design, code, and content are all yours.

Having some people test the game to see if they find the game too easy/hard, or ensuring they grasp the concept and stuff is fine.

By: sorceress

sorceress — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 17:44:47 +0000

An interesting question…

Some LD contestants do make early builds, and ask others to test it, with questions like “What frame-rate do you get?”, or “Run this and see if you connect to the server okay?” Sometimes suggestions can be offered in reply.

I don’t think such suggestions would break the rules, but I’m not sure there is a clear line between that and being a designer on a team. The distinction is made in both magnitude and intent.

By: quill18

quill18 — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 17:23:52 +0000

90% of the fun of LD for me is to make it as social as possible while still creating all of the content myself. That’s why I livestream the process, and I definitely put up builds from time to time for viewers to play with.