Making a VR Game From Scratch #5: What I Learned From The First Playtests

My name is Kirill, and I am working on a VR game hand-in-hand with a community. Take part in the process by choosing features, trying new versions, or sharing ideas. Leave your mark in the VR industry. Or learn from my mistakes. Everyone involved will be mentioned in the main menu, game environment, or even get exclusive in-game items. Let’s see where it goes!

Barely two months passed and I already have great news. First of all, I finished the prototype. Yay! It is fully playable and works through the internet. Second, almost 20 people already played it and left their feedback. In this post, I’m going to share everything with you.

But first, to remind what the game is about, here’s a high-level description. Skip it if you came here after reading the game’s design doc.

An old mansion, present days. A Priest enters the mansion to defeat the Poltergeist. The only way to do it is to destroy five Altars — the sources of Poltergeist’s power. The Poltergeist must kill the Priest and protect these Altars. The Poltergeist can grab and throw objects(furniture, statues, knives) at the Priest, causing damage, but can’t hurt the Priest directly. The Priest can’t damage the Poltergeist(it has any health) but can banish it to a remote location with a Holy Cross or use a Bible shield to cover from flying objects. When the Priest finds an Altar, he tries to destroy it and continue looking for other ones. When the Poltergeist meets the Priest, it grabs and throws nearby objects at him. The Priest defends with a Bible shield and attacks with a Cross. Repeat.

Player’s feedback

After every playtest, I asked people to fill out a short questionnaire. The whole purpose of this is to find gold in the sand — most enjoyable moments to focus on them. Also, to get rid of the stuff that is not working. This is what I found.

Players enjoyed

mastering the game: getting better in using weapons and gadgets when playing as a Priest; coming up with new strategies of killing the Priest when playing as a Poltergeist

having fun

the game was getting more intense when fewer and fewer Altars were left

to explore the mansion and find the Altars

After playing with so many people, I wanna tell you that there’s no better reward for the developer then hearing them laugh their ass off playing your game.

Players were irritated by

numerous bugs ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

lack of feedback from the world and actions (visual effects, sound effects)

a bit hard to master for unexperienced players

dark parts of the level

some imbalances in gameplay like slow run speed or too much damage applied

Of course, the first versions had a lot of flaws and bugs. Moreover, they lacked art and sound. However, in spite of that, the most critical milestone has been reached: people were having fun playing Priest vs. Poltergeist. The core loops are working.

What I learned

Now, here are some of the lessons I learned after doing playtests with almost 20 players.

1. Sound adds a lot

My initial goal was to make a prototype as soon as possible, give it to people and start testing the gameplay. So, I cut everything I thought won’t help me do it. Like sounds.

In the first version of the prototype, there were no sounds completely. At the same time, the Poltergeist is invisible. Do you guys see where I’m going with this? There was no way for the Priest player to figure where the Poltergeist was. So it led to frustration.

However, I still didn’t want to make it visible, so I added the first sound — some kind of a creepy whispering and attached it to the Poltergeist. I also made it spatial: if the Poltergeist move, the whispering sound moves.

The results were incredible. Priest players not only became more aware of where the Poltergeist was at any given moment, but some of them even started to search for it and attack with a Cross! The game balance changed significantly. Their powers finally leveled out and it added so much fun.

Conclusion? Sounds are super important and can be part of the gameplay. They can’t be cut off.

2. All players have different learning curves

It was fun to watch how players learned the basics of the game. Some became almost invincible after the first round; some needed 3–4 rounds to start making progress at all. Some players were more protective; some loved to attack. Some used the weapons one way; some another.

My ultimate goal is to make sure all the types of players have fun. However, for now, I’m not sure how to solve that puzzle except implementing some kind of matchmaking system based on skill or play style. The only thing I know making gameplay variables(like running speed or Cross hit distance) average is not an option.

I would appreciate any advice on it.

3. Game feedback must be impossible not to notice

It is sometimes the case that you have all the game logic set, but players don’t know whether it’s working or not. That’s exactly what happened to the prototype.

When the Priest catches the Poltergeist into the Holy light of his Cross, the Poltergeist is banished — teleported to the remote location. It gives the Priest player some time to find the next Altar. At least that’s what I thought players would do.

However, instead of using these crucial seconds to find the next Altar, Priest players continued scanning the room with a Cross even after they banished the Poltergeist.

Why? Turned out they didn’t get the Poltergeist was banished. You see, once caught in the Holy light The Poltergeist first becomes visible and a second later disappears.

The idea was to show the Priest player that he caught the Poltergeist and now it’s banished(disappeared). However, Priest players didn’t get whether they banished the Poltergeist or it just was flying by. So, they continued to search for the Poltergeist.

Same with the Altars. It starts glowing red when being destroyed and the light goes out when finally destroyed. However, the light was so dim, players didn’t get whether they destroyed the Altar or not.

That’s a mistake of a poor feedback loop. When the player makes an action, he expects a reaction — some way of the world giving feedback to what he’s done. If it’s not there, the player is not sure if he actually did something or it is a bug. As you see, I designed the feedback, but it wasn’t definite enough.

You can avoid this visually by using a bright effect of a burning Altar or by using sound like an increasing scream of thousands of demons. Or both. Both is better. The idea is to make it in a way that the player won’t miss it.

Also, don’t forget to use haptic feedback when using gamepads, they add a lot to the immersion.