Game Development Community

Testers are a many splendored thing.

by Phillip Daigle · 02/08/2007 (10:02 pm) · 0 comments

Space Trader is in closed beta now, and I'm ridiculously excited about that. If you haven't yet signed up for a shot at it, head over to playSpaceTrader and get yourself set up. Don't worry, we won't shackle you or anything - that will happen plenty once we launch the game and grip thousands of people with addiction.

Now that we're in beta, it became apparent that beta testers are a rare resource akin to gold or uranium. Sure you can get people to PLAY your game - but can you get them to TEST it? There's a difference. Here's an example of someone trying to play a game:

Quote:"The game crashed on level three."

And here's an example of someone testing the game:

Quote:"The game crashed and threw me back to desktop on level three when I tried talking to the farmer AFTER I recieved the golden egg from Supergoose, but BEFORE I'd polished it with the +5 Rag of Brilliance."

Now, don't get me wrong - we want people to play the game. That's key. But great tester are like a magnificent Guatemalan Cow of Paradise - rare and beautiful. Also useful, because I hear those cows can haul, like, a ton of stuff. Are YOU a Cow of Paradise? If you think so, prove it! Prove that you deserve the suffix "of Paradise"!

blogs.playspacetrader.com/assets/2007/2/6/jw_farside.jpg
My blog update today is shorter than usual, but I'm ill. And I don't mean in the hip hop sense, I mean in the immune system sense. Gross.

Regards, Daigle