This year Pro Mobile visited Gamescom in Cologne. It was amazing to see so many people who love games in one place. Developers, players, publishers and many other people from the gaming industry came together to share ideas, experiences and thoughts about the future of games.
One blog post is definitely not enough to describe everything that happened during these days in Cologne. But there is one thing we really want to talk about: playtesting.
There is no better playtest than a real player
It is a well-known fact that one of the best ways to understand whether a game is good or bad is to watch someone play it.
You can spend weeks thinking about your game mechanics. You can explain the rules to your friends. You can test everything yourself. But then you give the game to someone who has never seen it before and suddenly you discover something you never expected.
Maybe they do not understand something that seemed obvious to you. Maybe they find a different way to play. Maybe they completely ignore the feature you thought was the most important one.
Playtesting is very useful.
And we thought Gamescom would be the perfect place to do it. Almost everyone there is a gamer, so what could be better than bringing our games and asking people to try them?
So we came prepared. We brought our whole portfolio, including Smartle, Clean!, Hex Sense and Catch’n’Merge. We also brought three more puzzle games. Hex Minesweeper and Vagabond are already playable, but we keep working on them. The third is not out yet.
And the reactions surprised us.
Hex Minesweeper: simple, but very addictive
One of the games we brought was Hex Minesweeper. We recently made this simpler version of Hex Sense because many players told us that they wanted to have just a hexagonal minesweeper. They liked the Minesweeper part of Hex Sense but did not want the story, character or progression. They wanted a simple hexagonal Minesweeper game that can be replayed an infinite amount of times.
So we wanted to see what happens when people play it for the first time and people loved it.
Some players needed a little time to understand the chain-link symbol on the tiles. Once they understood what it meant they became unstoppable. They started looking at the numbers, finding safe tiles and working their way through the board.
It was especially interesting to watch people who already knew the classic Minesweeper game. They already understood the basic idea and the hexagonal board made the playing experience a bit different. Our conclusion is that if you are a fan of classic Minesweeper, you will enjoy playing Hex Minesweeper too. And you can play it directly in your browser as one of our free browser games.
Vagabond: not everyone liked it
The second game we playtested was Vagabond, our new two-player puzzle game.
The reactions here were much more mixed. Some people looked at the game and said something like: “Okay, I move the pieces on the board, but where is the action? Where is something happening?” We realized that Vagabond is a quiet game and not for everyone.
Other players, however, loved it. Some people immediately started challenging their friends to play against them. Others realized that bots have different difficulty levels and wouldn’t stop playing until all three bots were defeated.
So even though Vagabond was for sure not for everyone, we consider the playtest a success. We learned that the game has its own audience. It is for people who enjoy thinking, planning and trying to outsmart another player.
A game you have not seen yet
The third game was our completely new obstacle game under the working title Obstacle Master. It is not published anywhere yet. We did not even bring a polished version to Gamescom. We made a dev build and gave it to people to play. We know that the difficulty curve needs more work. The visuals for sure need polishing and some additional skins in the shop would make the game much more attractive.
Surprisingly, almost everyone who tried Obstacle Master loved it. Even with all the disadvantages of a pre-MVP game, players wanted to keep playing. That was a very good sign. And it gave us confidence that this game is worth continuing to work on before we publish it.
Why playtesting matters
For us, this was the scariest and most useful part of Gamescom. When you make games, it is very easy to become too close to them. You know every little detail and because of that it can be difficult to see what a new player sees. Watching someone play gives a completely different perspective.
This is also one of the reasons we decided to focus on making browser games and free online games. Players can open a game and start playing immediately. There is no long installation or preparation process and no need to download anything.
At Pro Mobile, we make games that we want to play ourselves. But we also want to make games that other people enjoy. Playtesting helps us understand the difference.
If you want to try some of our puzzle games, you can play them for free on YesPuzzles.com. We have free games including Smartle, Clean!, Hex Sense, Hex Minesweeper, Catch’n’Merge and Vagabond. Plus, Obstacle Master is going live very soon.
And if you want to become one of our early testers and play games before they are released and give us your feedback, join our Discord and tell us. We read every message and would love to hear what you think.
Written by
Ana