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          <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">- <a href="../index.html">Contents</a><br>
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              <p><font color="#0000FF"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0000CC">volume 
                1, issue 39</font></b></font></p>
              <p><font color="#0000FF"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0000CC"> 
                </font></b></font></p>
              <p>  <p><font face="Courier New, Courier, mono"><b><font color="#339900" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Today 
                in loonygames:</font></b></font></p>

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        <p align="LEFT"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0022A8"><b><a target="" href="../../corner/index.html"><font size="-1">Beaker's 
          Bent</font></a><font size="-1">:</font></b></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="+3" color="#0022A8"><br>
          Test Early, Test Often</font></p>
        <p align="RIGHT"><font color="#804000"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">By 
          Rich &quot;<a target="_self" href="mailto:rich@loonygames.com">Beaker</a>&quot; 
          Wyckoff</font></b></font></p>
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        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">How is it that a game winds 
          up with things which just feel wrong, to players and to developers alike? 
          Or along similar lines, why is it that some games ship which feel fine 
          to the people who made them, but feel wrong to the actual audience? 
          I think the answer is simple: these games were designed not as a conversation, 
          but as a monologue.</font>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">In less fancy terms, what 
          I am saying here is that in order to produce great gameplay, that gameplay 
          must be tested and revised. Until I joined Knowledge Adventure, I had 
          been working with new technology – engines developed just for the games 
          on which I was working. Making a new game on a new engine is the most 
          difficult task in the industry, and it is no surprise (but also no excuse) 
          that design is often compromised on these projects.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">I am now working on a project 
          using a licensed engine, and we are in the ideal position of being able 
          to easily and rapidly test our ideas. Our company, being part of one 
          of the largest publishing organizations in the software industry (Havas 

          ne&eacute; Cendant), is lucky enough to have an in-house test lab, and 
          it is regular practice on our more-usual products to test them continually 
          throughout their conception with the audience for whom they are intended. 
          </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">My current project, although 
          much more similar to the kinds of games I have been working on all my 
          career, is also expected to go through the same regular kid testing 
          as every other KA project. To designers at more-traditional developers, 
          this resembles the horror which is known as "focus grouping." </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">It is not surprising that 
          focus groups cause fear and pain among traditional designers. Focus 
          groups are usually run by, of all the most game-clueless groups at a 
          company, the marketing department, and usually come quite late in a 
          project's cycle, when it is already too late to really change any of 
          the fundamental concepts of a game's design. They usually generate a 
          combination of "I wish this game was exactly like game X" and "I wish 
          this game had these ten features which I like in game Y" comments, and 
          then the marketing department writes these up into a list of demands.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">However, just because focus 
          groups are generally useless and aggravating and act mainly to allow 
          people who don't actually know what makes a game good to think that 
          they are helping make it better does not mean that testing with the 
          public is a bad idea. In fact, if you examine the phrase "design is 
          a conversation" it should be obvious that interacting with your audience 
          is not just useful, but essential. To have a conversation, you must 
          have two participants – it should be obvious that one of those participants 
          should be the audience for whom the game is intended.</font></p>
        <p>&nbsp;</p>
        <p align="right"><i><font size="-1" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">(<a href="index3.php">Continued 
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    <td><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-2"><b>Credits:</b> 
      Beaker's Bent logo illustrated by and is &copy; 1999 Dan Zalkus. Beaker's 
      Bent is &copy; 1999 Rich Wyckoff. All other content is &copy; 1998 <a target="_self" href="http://www.loonyboi.com">loonyboi 
      productions</a>. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited, so don't 
      do it. We have ways of making you talk.</font></i></td>
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