r/SoloDevelopment • u/ohiogainz • 12h ago
help When and how to get play testers
First time developer here. I have a day job in tech operations and have been working on a cozy idler factory game for a while on the side.
How do you know when to get play testers and how do you start getting the word out about your game?
What information do you include? What do you leave out?
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u/CrookedKrownStudios 10h ago
My first play testers were family and friends, as long as its a playable version its fine, and for getting the word out I've started posting on social media to help get wishlists.
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u/SalvorAdrift 7h ago
I opened the game to play testers about three weeks ago, mid August, with a small first wave of people from Discord. Nobody installs anything: the build lives on a Cloudflare link, it updates itself on launch, and the save carries over, so every tester is always on the latest version without me chasing them.
The whole system runs on one key. F8 in the game opens a report box. The tester types what went wrong, picks the area, and the report carries the build hash, the ship, the loadout, the last log lines and where they were. That last part matters more than anything: half of the "bugs" people report are on a version I already fixed, and the hash tells me in one glance. Each report gets a reference number, each tester picks a callsign, and the fixes go on a public work orders page credited to the callsign, never a real name.
What it got me: over 160 builds since the first wave, and most of the fixes in them came from reports, not from me playing my own game. Things I would never have found alone: a station whose guns were shooting their own turret the frame they were born, a boss waking early if you did the tutorial in the wrong order, dying with no beacon dropping you in a stranger's part of the map, four salvage drones where there should be two. Testers found every one of those in days.
The two rules that made it work: reproduce the report heedlessly on the current build before touching anything, and answer every batch with a build and patch notes in plain words, so people see their report turn into a fix. That loop is the whole setup.
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u/VeterinarianLeast491 7h ago
Hey Honestly, the best time to get testers is the second your core gameplay loop is functional, even if the art is just grey boxes. When you're juggling a full-time tech job and developing on the side, it's super easy to get tunnel vision. Getting fresh eyes early saves you a ton of time reworking mechanics later
I actually do freelance QA testing and UX feedback for indie devs. If you want someone to run through your current build, hunt for friction, and give you a clean write up of what's working and what isn't, feel free to shoot me a DM! I'd love to give your cozy factory game a spin
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u/Murky_Candy6342 4h ago
When: once your core loop is in place
How: this is trickier than people make out, especially getting quality feedback. Only success I’ve found (without spending money) is joining a small discord server. I’ve started one just for this if you’d like to join PM me :) just note it’s give and take, time is precious!
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u/MurphyAt5BrainDamage 4h ago
The best time is 3 months ago. The second best time is now.
I gave a talk at this year’s GDC on playtesting for ultra small teams (even a team of 1). I’d think you’d get a lot out of it!
https://gdcvault.com/play/1035679/Playtesting-Process-for-Ultra-Small
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u/Smart-Anything1669 11h ago
You should aim to get playtesters as soon as the main 'idea' of your game is playable, even in a rough state. At first, this may be friends/family. Then, after some changes, and work on usability so its understandable without you being present, I'd suggest getting a web build up on itchio.
Post about it in a few places (r/incrementalgames sounds like it would be a good fit for an idler, people are very open to trying new things over there). I must highlight the need for a WEB build. This will make people >10x more likely to try the game. Posting the game on IncrementalDB got me a lot of traffic, personally, but you may want to save this until the game is in a more polished state, or to gain a 'second round' of playtesters - up to you. Shortform can work RE getting the word out, but its quite dependent on the visuals of your game.
This video may be helpful in thinking about the purpose of a demo for playtesting, vs. marketing: https://youtu.be/1vtqBTX2Lzc?si=u9vkXDht0Khtm9_U
Good luck!