Beta testing has been going well. So far beta testers have found several bugs and made numerous suggestions for improvement. It’s been really useful. I’ve also gotten some really positive comments about it.

Beta tester- “I’m really intrigued by the story and the setting”

Beta Tester-“The simplicity of everything was nice.”

A lot of people really enjoyed being able to ride the horse.

One of the more serious bugs that was found was that on certain screen resolutions the buttons though for doing so would be off the screen. I’ve already figured out a fix for this but it’s made me consider changing the menu buttons to a different location. I’m considering switching them to being in a row along the bottom of the screen instead of in the corner.

I’m a little surprised at how well beta testing is going considering it’s my first time doing beta testing for a game. Frost Bite I decided not to because I wanted to get it out into the real world and start figuring out how to publish and promote a game. I knew there was going to be a pretty steep learning curve for publishing and promoting. I had made games before but never published them. So I figured I should get started on it as soon as possible.

So how am I running the beta test? Well I asked for volunteers on twitter and my personal Facebook page. The response was surprising. I was expecting 5 or 6. The current count of beta testers is 30+.

I had to figure out a more streamlined approach to getting responses so I set up a survey using SurveyMonkey. The nice thing about this is the responses are anonymous and tabulated. This lets me see the similarities in experiences easier.

There were some surprises. Frost Bite tends to get dinged on the fact that players aren’t sure where to go. This is something I put a lot of time into improving in Dustwalker. There is a mini-map with indicators of points of interest and a road that leads through the desert to the town and the tower. Despite the indicators a large number of beta testers headed right for the tower and ended up skipping quests. To fix this the tower is now barricaded until an npc is talked to in the town.

I just want to thank all the people who have volunteered to beta test this game. You guys are amazing.

If you are curious about Dustwalker and want to check it out you can find it at https://gildedoctopusstudios.itch.io/dustwalker-episode-1

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