I just sent my first ever interactive fiction to play testers. Now I just nervously wait, I guess.
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Congratulations! That is in fact both an exciting and anxiety-inducing time 
It is definitely the case that your testers will find ways to break things that you never imagined would be possible, which can feel deflating, but I’m pretty sure every author, no matter how many times they’ve been through the cycle, experiences that. And the more stuff they break, the better your final game will be!
This is a good time to catch up on a book or do some playing of your own, too, which can be a helpful break amidst the feverish development process.
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Well done! Yes agreed, it’s a mix of excitement and nerves. I’ve been through this several times, and was also very nervous last month with playtesting. But I was humbled by how kind and thorough my testers were. And grateful and energised to make things better in the game. Good luck! And I agree with Mike re treating yourself to a wee break now. You’ll be busy enough soon!
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A few observations from my experience:
- I’ve had a lot of different testers over the past few years and they’ve all been very kind, courteous and helpful, so there’s no need to worry about that aspect.
- Different testers have different styles and will pick up different things, so it’s good to have multiple testers. I think 3 is the minimum, 5 is the ideal and over 7 is too many.
- Wait about two weeks until you get all the test feedback and chill out in the meantime.
- Go through the comments first and fix all those issues, as this is where you’ll find all the bugs. Most testers will find the same bugs.
- Go through all the transcripts next. This is where you’ll find the things they tried that didn’t work and need to be added to the game.
- In the process of fixing all the bugs and enhancements, you’ll find more issues that none of the testers picked up. Fix those as you go.
If you make major changes, do a second round of testing. Otherwise, just do a more solid self test. In particular, test all the changes you made.
By the time you’re finished, you’ll be absolutely sick of the game and wish you’d never started, but once you click that Publish button, you’ll be so relieved that it’s out there and you’ve done the best you possibly can. If you’re proud of it, then it will probably get a good reception, but those first two or three weeks out in the public domain are more stressful than the test period.
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in my experience, the best nerve-keeper is working on other projects.
Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.
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