I don’t think there is and I also don’t think that the author is on this forum. She’s provided her email address though (or so I’ve heard)? You can also find her on the Adventuron Discord.
1 Like
No DMs on itch. They have public game discussion and you can leave review comments, but those aren’t often linked where the author can see them. Review comments for a game are buried in the “interact” menu on the dashboard and itch’s public forums aren’t real active.
Game discussion can be enabled if the author selects to allow comments on the page. Maybe check the author’s profile to see if they have a Twitter account or an email or a contact link?
The author is @Grizel, but she’s probably not a frequent visitor. I know she’s been very busy recently, but you could send her a PM.
The email wasn’t in the game that I saw, but following links on the author’s itch.io homepage, I found this page, which does have an email link at the bottom, so that might be something to try?
I’ve sent her a personal message with a link to this thread. I’m sure she’ll be able to answer your question soon.
On display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard’?
Sounds like it has been deliberately hidden to ward off the reckless and foolhardy…
4 Likes
The more playtesting the better! It's hard work.
You should be proud. I know playtesting is a great way to feel like part of a competition even if I didn’t create anything for it.
Also, in general, I’d add, if someone wants to playtest but is worried they don’t know enough – programmers need a lot of different perspectives. For instance, I appreciate having someone relatively weak on puzzles but strong on player hinting. They often help me make puzzles fairer in general. Sometimes a tester says “Sorry I couldn’t do much but I would be interested in X, Y and Z.” And even if I just implement one, it is a win.
I know I as an author welcome transcripts in-comp too, and I’m probably not the only one. Even transcripts without commentary are valuable. Sometimes when a player is lost, I see “Okay, I saw how they could get lost, and I didn’t consider they could get lost that way, and adding/removing X will lessen the chance it happens in the future.” I’ve had people send me transcripts in-comp, and later, we worked together on each others’ projects.
Itch.io is definitely worth visiting. If there are people there who don’t know about this place, I suppose we can use ROT13 (rot13.com deciphers ROT13 as well as ROT1, ROT2, etc.) to cover spoilers.
3 Likes
I couldn’t agree more. I had 4 testers on ‘Danny Dipstick’ and 7 testers on ‘Acid Rain’. Apart from a few obvious bugs, they all seemed to find different issues, some quite obscure. I made a LOT of changes in both games. Unfortunately, I didn’t allow enough time for bug fixing and enhancements. I really needed a second round of testing.
5 Likes
Ok, I am ready. I like to do things on the right way.
It’s really tough to find that balance! You don’t want to bug people too much, but you know if you don’t bug them enough, it will irritate people who play the game.
Similarly, if you send a tester a game with a lot of bugs, it’s hard work for them, but if it doesn’t have a lot of bugs, it can waste their time.
So it’s tough to ask. Two waves of testing definitely help. You try to weed out the obvious stuff and keep to vanilla fixes, but … the problem is, you might make 50 small fixes that each have a 98% percent chance of being okay after programmer testing, which leaves a good chance one bad/obvious bug sprung up from your work.
3 Likes