Thoughts for prospective IFComp authors?

And don’t forget to credit your beta-testers! More generally, it’s a good idea to have an ABOUT command or link, available from the start, that includes credits, background context, and other information useful for playing the game. And how to contact the author, if you want to find out quickly about bugs that your beta-testers didn’t catch…

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I would dispute that. You may well get one or two offers, but in my experience, that will be about it. Maybe people with a good track record and a high profile around here will attrack more testers, but if you are not well know, you may find you struggle. Posting requests on other boards is another option, as is offering to help other with their beta-testing, if they will test you game.

Being able to get 1-2 offers fairly reliably is still pretty good, especially if you’re just starting out. Of course, it depends on how many you need, I make fairly uncomplicated Twine games and can get by with a couple, but I imagine someone making a very deep parser game would like more.

That raises a good question, what IS a good number of playtesters to have?

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I’m used to RPG books, which often have two dozen playtesters listed. But that strikes me as both impractical and unnecessary for IF, which does not, like an RPG, require more than one person to do a single play-through. On the other hand, in writing ordinary fiction, I’m used to asking for a single beta reader if I’m just looking for help with typos and flow, or 2-4 when I’m asking for broader feedback on a longer piece. I am also, given the way of the world, used to asking 3 people for each 1-2 that gives useful feedback on time.

So I would say that IF should aim for at least 2 playtesters giving useful feedback, but this may require asking 4-5 of them. And having feedback from 4 people would be even better. But unless the game is unusually complex in a branching sense, I would expect diminishing returns after the 4-5 point, because they’ll be running into the same things.

I usually try to have 5-10 playtesters. But I have (repeatedly) made the mistake of exclusively leaning on friends and family for playtesting. The problem is that my friends and family aren’t veteran parser players, and although they turn up important bugs, those bugs aren’t the same ones that veteran players turn up.

Get a variety of playtesters. It helps.

Make sure you understand the beginning, middle, and end of your story (and any variations) well. Don’t get caught in the loop of changing your story based on play-tester feedback. that will lead to an incoherent and wildly unsatisfying experience. Stick to your story and your vision. Allow play testers to really only focus on bugs, grammar, and small insights.

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This is a great primer; thanks for writing it! Everyone’s contributions to this thread is wonderful as well.

This is also my 2nd year in IF Comp; I did The Speaker last year. Here’s to a great comp. [emote]:)[/emote]

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Well, there’s changing your story, and there’s adding major things such as a help-verb, or even having 3 people say “this part of the story doesn’t work.” If one person says, wait, this doesn’t work, then yeah–see what you can twiddle. But if several do, that’s a sign something needs to be cleaned up.

Something I haven’t seen mentioned (though admittedly, I may have missed it), and applies far more to Twine (and Twine specifically, as opposed to hand-rolled CYOA systems) than parser:

Give some thought and time to basic design / CSS. I honestly hadn’t realized how many judges look at a default-formatted Twine game and think, “oh, this is beginner level stuff”. If I’d known, I would have taken some time to do something–even something small but deliberate, something which showed I was capable of making and executing a conscious decision about the look of my game, would have been better than nothing. For example, if you have links which do one thing (e.g. cycling/cosmetic) and links which do another (e.g. forward propulsion), changing the color on one is a really intuitive way to get your reader to notice and pick up on a difference (Swan Hill, admittedly not a comp game, does this well). This was one of my biggest “I wish I’d known this going in” moments, because it wasn’t something which was on my radar when I first found the community.

Re: Playtesters. I’d say for a comp game (small-ish), one or two solid and fanatical testers is excellent. For larger stories, you’ll want a series of testers throughout the process, but not necessarily the same ones front-to-back. But it’s also important to understand how to test things yourself. Using automation and regression tests and add anything your playtesters throw at you into your regressions. There is a level of programming skill needed to get your playtesters focused on the story and not on your implementation.

Be really, really careful with that last-minute idea… far too often, the last-minute change adds brand new bugs/typos/etc.

The private author forum is probably the main reason I’m entering (again) this year. It’s incredible. It was also handy when companies approached IF Comp authors to write games (for money, yay) and we wanted to figure out if they were a scam or not (it wasn’t, double yay).

If you want a lot of reviews fast, start your title with an “A”. Or go the other way if you want to be eased into the review game. The alphabet is a harsh mistress.

And, like so many people have said, write the best game you can (which includes using beta testers, and in some cases waiting until next year).

Unless it got changed, the IFComp site lists in “pure” alphabetical order, not “library” alphabetical order.

My title “The Baker of Shireton” was back with all the Ts instead of the Bs.