Some very good points about feedback there! 90% of the time friends and family will just say everything is fine so I tend to focus more on looking at where they struggle with the controls or something like that. Overtime though they will get good at the game and develop muscle memory though 😉. Another way with friends and family is to gauge how excited they might be to play test the game again in a future play session. If they don't seem to happy about it, something 'could' be wrong. Getting a general consensus is typical although ultimately the tough decisions are always down to you. It can never hurt to get as much feedback as possible as you will decide what is actionable or not anyway etc. Great video! Often something I get concerned about 🤣.
its really fucking annoying trying to listen to this on the bus with the phone in my pocket and having to take it out to skip the ads every two minutes
Children are fantastic QA testers. My 10-year-old son is one of my most valued playtesters. While most of my family and friends sugarcoat the feedback to avoid hurting my feelings, my son truly speaks his mind. He is brutally honest and loves to break my game. Kids may not have the vocabulary to describe to you exactly what is wrong, however, they make up for these shortcomings by giving it to you short and sweet. Kids do not care about your feelings or how long you've spent working on it. They want to have fun and if it isnt there, you will know very quickly.
100% agree with that. I have a 6 year old nephew that loves gaming and he knows more about the world design of my metroidvania than I do lol the only drawback is that he keeps asking for newer builds all the time.
Totally agreed too. Have my 11yo son and 8yo daughter playing testing a game of mine, and they're absolutely honest when something is not right for them. I made some great improvement based on their feedback
Yeah, 8 to 12 yr olds are the best. Unlike mature gamers who go into skill mechanics and such, these kids find that one attack that they can spam to get easy wins. And now you can fix it.
Working in software development, I've learned that people often provide feedback in the form of a solution, instead of a problem. For example, someone might try your game and say "You know what would be awesome? If you added a double jump." But they don't realize the huge impact something like that can have, or how it might get in the way of the rest of the game's design. What they might actually mean is that some platforms are too hard to reach, or that flying enemies are hard to hit... Or it might be that they just played another game with a double jump, and their muscle memory is telling them it should work here too :) You have to be able to analyze and understand what problem they've actually identified, if any, so that you can formulate a solution that fits within your design.
I wish people would speak in that way at all the rest of the time, though. A lot of everyday interactions would be easier if everybody talked in terms of improvement, rather than what they don't like.
That aligns with my observations too. When asking for feedback, especially for projects already in a quite advanced stage it is good to ask about "pain points", not about particular solutions or features. And if possible it is often better to observe and translate it into actionable steps yourself. I had cases where people suggested suboptimal time-consuming to implement solutions, 180 degrees opposite to what other people wanted. Instead, by focusing on pain points of all affected users, an optimal, elegant, quicker to implement and easier to maintain solution was provided. Software has versions for a reason too. At some point enough is enough. There is always something to improve or add.
It's amazing how much inconvenience people are willing to put up with just avoid confrontation, or how many user interfaces become incomprehensible because of imposter syndrome. And how many people spend 1/3th of their waking life in a software environment that they hate with a passion but never tell anyone about it, because their idea of being a "good team player" is to avoid saying anything negative.
I'm not a game developer, but I am a Product Manager and getting product feedback is a big part of my job. Some tips I've picked up are: Whenever possible, get people to use your product (play your game) without any direction from you. If they get stuck or don't use a system you've created, that's great information about how you're communicating those features. If they aren't getting to a large part of the demo, you can give them some pointers after some time. The video did a good job getting at this point, but it's worth mentioning again. Never offer a solution in the question. For example if you ask "Would my game be good if I added a crafting system" almost everyone is going to say yes because you're basically offering them a crafting system for free (people don't understand that adding one feature means another doesn't get added). It's generally more beneficial to ask open questions about what your feature would solve like: "What would make getting arrows and healing items more interesting" or even "is it fun to obtain items in my game? If not what would make it fun for you". You might get crafting system as an answer to these questions, you might get something totally different that you never thought of, or you might even realize that the problem you're trying to solve isn't a problem or isn't the right problem. An easy but powerful trick I've picked up is to tell people that you're not the creator of what you're reviewing. I'll say things like "I didn't build this app, I'm just here to get feedback for the company. You won't insult me if you say it's bad". For game devs, you could say you're a friend of the developer or you were hired to do demos for them. You get much more honest feedback from people if they aren't worried about insulting you. Great video! Everything mentioned is great advice, even for non game products!
One of the best insights I received that proved true in regards to feedback, is that people are usually good at pointing out when something doesn't work (for them), however they're almost always wrong when trying to tell you WHY it doesn't work. Your point of listening to your friends feedback but then also watching his gameplay to analyze his decisions reminded me of that.
This comment comes across very familiar after just having watched blender guru's cabin video again for the third time or so today :) ruclips.net/video/iFQokXmqmVQ/видео.html
I used to work for a usability testing company and I oh my god, I've seen so many of these things you are talking about! people who make up problems to have an opinion, people who just want to be praised for their apps and won't take any negative feedback, people who can't accept that their internal testing can be flawed because of biases.... thank you for great videos and can't wait to play your game
You should try adding a FPS mode into your game and maybe some MMO elements! And you need to have a orchestral score because that's the best for historic games. I know it's hard but it's totally valid! Right?
Yeah yeah totally and maybe some VR in there too, oh and Viking Lootboxes and I mean maybe just make Assassin's Creed Valhalla since you're doing the whole Viking thing anyway and that's an objectively good game. Who even plays 2D these days?
One thing I found to be true when trying to get the right type of feedback when developing is try not to pose questions that requires solutions, rather ask about feelings, initial reactions etc. You are the designer, it's your job to find solutions. So the question is: is their game experiance the same as you hope they would have had/achieve? Yes? Great you nailed it. No ? then start to think of why that is. Only you have an holistic view of your project. What the user know to 100% is what they feel. Try capturing that right after their experiance.
Often people who "critique" to harm are often people who cannot do what you do. Envy. We're a newly formed Game Dev team and we love your videos man... You're like the game dev messiah of truth haha... Looking forward to more lessons from you! 😄
This is such a great video. I have a history in the creative writing world (novels), and in college we spent a lot of time talking about feedback and critique. One of the tactics I developed during that time in order to filter helpful feedback from unhelpful was to write a response (for myself, in a writing diary) why the feedback isn't right for my project. This conscious articulation allowed me to further refine my idea while also filtering out helpful feedback from unhelpful feedback. The idea was, if I couldn't explain exactly why the feedback is wrong, then I have to admit that maybe I should consider it. Or, I have to better define (in the novel equivalent of a design document) what my project is about, so that the design itself then filters out the feedback. As a bonus, this practice would build out my design document in a way that makes future decisions on future feedback much easier.
Thanks for sharing your insights John. I think non-verbal feedback is my favourite. You can learn so much from how someone interacts with your game without the expectation of having to give feedback.
There is also a difference between feedback that is good but requires lots of work, and feedback that is good and can be implemented without too much effort. It always depends how much an idea is worth to you implementing.
Eric Lang, a prominent board game designer, has talked about how in designing many of his games, it was often the case that the game testers would by and large agree that a certain feature was great, perhaps even the best part of a game, yet they would collectively rate the entire game lower than when testing the game with that feature removed. In other words, it'd be like if you tested 2 versions of an FPS game, with and without a rocket launcher, and everyone insisted the rocket launcher was the coolest weapon in the game, while at the same time rating the game without the rocket launcher better. This sounds counter-intuitive, but the simple truth is that game systems interact in very complex ways, and the intersection of the entire game with the subjective preferences of each player is what produces the end user experience. It's very easy to fall into the trap of thinking that making a particular thing better will make the game better when it won't. Just as an example, when you improved some of your game's art, it became obvious you needed to improve all of the art up to that new standard to make it a cohesive whole. Unfortunately, most indie developers don't dedicate the resources to properly getting feedback from gameplay testers, because it's not as obvious as writing another line of code or smoothing out a particular animation.
I quit game dev years ago but I still like to watch your channel. Your content is super interesting and some advice can be applied to other fields other than game dev
As someone who is still starting this journey, I can already appreciate how valuable this feedback will be. I recently did a presentation and demo on game development at my work, and though I realized before I even gave that presentation, that the work I showed was still very much flawed, the feedback that day was basically all very positive. Nice as it is to receive praise, it will not make the work any better. Being burned to the ground, wouldn't make it better either, so there has to be that fine line to balance on that actually gives constructive feedback. No experience with it yet, but I hope I will get it when I need it. Thank you for taking the time, to take us through your lessons learned on this.
Context is what I'd add. Take the where and when into account. Friends and I experienced some sort of "fair drunkenness" or "convention drunkenness" if you will. We had gathered overwhelmingly positive feedback, were given promises, and so on. But it all went nowhere. People were just hyped solely from being on such an event. I remember us being completely hyped ourselves the same night because we had taken this feedback as is. So yeah, quite a lesson for us.
The reason I want to play your game is that it meets a minimum standard (since you are a professional developer) AND the love and labour I know you put into it. Thanks for these insights - it blows me away how I can apply many of these lessons to my career as an electronic engineer and life in general! Thanks for sharing.
Appreciated the video. As an aspiring musician I find asking for feedback on music especially difficult for these reasons. 1) music is highly aesthetic so there is very few 'right' answers as most opinions are just preference. 2) music is highly emotional / personal and it can be a big ask to invite someone into that space and ask them to critique it. Poetry about oneself and singing are very vulnerable places. 3) because we are constantly bombarded with highly polished music all the time (mastered in studio, well recorded, pitch corrected) people's Ears are immediately tuned to allow smalls errors in recording or performance to completely distract them from what they are hearing. Like the guitar being too loud. This is all to say that I have worked hard to polish my music and art and I sulfate myself from almost all feedback other than a select few and to trust my intuition alone to make the art I want to hear in the world.
The saints row devs stood their ground recently when players told them to bring back the old characters. They told the players they love the changes they have made and stand by their creative decision. When I got my degree in game design, one class was focused completely on how to obtain feedback well and how to tell what feedback is valid or not.
The devs may love those changes but brands have an identity and you can't just slap any well-known name on your work and expect players to accept something completely different. The same happened with the new Prey which was a good game but many people were disappointed because they expected something comparable to the original Prey. That's also why Metal Gear Rising isn't called Metal Gear Solid - to communicate at first glance that this isn't the typical stealth game the series is known for. To be fair sometimes that works out well just like bands can stay popular after changes in their musical style, but definitely not always.
Totally agree with you. I guess the only way to know if a game is a good game, is by being played. Sessions of pure observation of people playing the thing you've been developed for the last year or so can give you the user eyes, a different perspective about your game, and with that you can modify what is needed and so on. Thanks for the videos, I see them while I make my own game.
Really enjoyed the video, it wasn't really until I took a prototype of my game to a indie game conference and had a lot of random people trying it out I was able to realize how some thing that didn't feel right design-wise were indeed probably not worth doing. I definitely value feedback from people I don't know trying out my game way more than myself or anyone I know well
As somone who playtested a few games on conferences. Be aware that you play different when you know the dev is standing behinde you. This is a case of beeing a lil creepy and be a ghost could be good.
This is valuable advice on feedback in general that translates to many parts of life and of course other forms of art. I, for example, feel emotionally very attached to my music and it is sometimes difficult to take the feedback for what it is. That was a great video, keep it up!
The previous artwork was brighter and lighter so it had a friendlier mood, the new art is desaturated and gives more of a constant grim world, that would be the only way i could read the "the old art was looking better"
Yeah, I think it comes down to the color choice of the beard (which is covering 40% of the model) in that it is more gray. Meaning that it will blend in with the environment like an NPC would. You might even lose track of it if the model had been smaller.
Great video as always :) I like compartmentalise the feedback I receive: personal taste - needs to be investigated - needs to be actioned. If someone says 'the interface needs to be Red' then that's personal taste. If 20 people say the interface needs to be Red - then that needs to be investigated and possibly actioned - if 'I fall through the floor of the space station near the NPC '... that needs to actioned :D
Great content, thanks! One of the best bits of feedback I got on a game I made long ago (Filbert Fledgling) came from watching kids through a window. I showed up for a Xmas party and my buddy's kids were on the PC playing the game. I stood outside the window like a weird stalker in the snow for about 15 minutes watching them. It was extremely useful!
Great thoughts! At around the 11:00 mark or so, family and friends are brought up. And how it’s easier to tell someone you know their stuff is cool when it’s not. Something else to consider-though-is that the more you get to know someone, the more you get to appreciate and treasure their creative efforts. A little doodle from a friend has much more sentimental value than a doodle from a stranger. You may actually think your friends’ work is legitimately better than it is just because you like them as a person. This could be dangerous for RUclips people and Twitch streamers, then. Someone who subscribes to a channel and watches videos every week may actually-little by little-start liking the content creator more and more and may rate their art and games and such more positively. Opinions are so crazy. It’s remarkable how easily they can be influenced and such. It’s a fascinating topic.
I'm a web developer and backend engineer, not a game dev, yet a lot of your videos and experience you share, fully apply to other software development fields.
Idk why but listening to your videos often help me get into a mood for ideas. Really appreciate all the insight and advice you put forth on this channel, and as someone looking to learn game dev as yet another hobby, it’s a great resource. Came up with an idea while watching the video and it’s simple enough even my newbie brain could probably construct a working prototype over the winter break. Cheers mate, I’ll keep this all in mind. After finishing the video, I’d like to add that I understand the importance of gearing people towards specific kinds of feedback you’re looking for. I had my mom read some of my writing for a short story scene and she’s always helped me with writing related things in the past. I wasn’t able to garner much out of her because there wasn’t much to go off of, but now I understand a bit better the ways to approach it.
At work I often talk about lab conditions when discussing UI, which is highlighted in this video. When sitting in an office at work surrounded by like minded people it's very easy to lose touch with how a product is actually used in the real world... The example I like most is to put yourself in the shoes of the customer in this scenario, you are standing in the supermarket checkout and your payment has just been declined, now you need to as quickly as you can use the UI to solve this issue, you are embarrassed and frustrated and people are queuing up behind you so the pressure is mounting... This scenario shows how vastly different sitting in an office in a comfortable chair with headphones on listen to relaxing music while you work, could not be further from the perspective of the end user. Moral is, people live in the real world, not in your room with perfect conditions.
''Know your (intended) audience'' is a thing I would put on that list. Who you are creating the experience for matters when figuring out whose opinion should have a greater impact on your decision-making. Trying to please/satisfy/include anyone makes the experience a right fit for no one. That's one of the reasons many projects 'lose their soul' so to speak. On the other hand, what's not appropriate for one porject can be super-useful for the next or the one after that. So archive any input you find interesting on a concept/system/abstract level, even if you have no intention to implement it in what you are currently working on.
Great video and very much everyone in the creative field should watch. Working in animation for film/TV - I quickly learned that everyone's a critic, everyone has an opinion. Even the best people in the business can give bad feedback (that's why a shot can do 100+ rounds). Purely because everyone has their own preferences to things. You have to trust your gut and the best thing to do is look at the most common notes that comes up in the group feedback and start there.
Wonderful insight. For us lending input and support, we often have to reel it back, when a potential solution we put forward or insight starts becoming more than what it is. We frequently revisit this internally and see where best we can identify these transitions into 'potentially bad advise / over step' inhope to mitigate it and give more value. Personally i frequently remind requesting bodies that their input is their's and we're just here to enlighten possible avenues.
Lovely video, as always. And a very fascinating topic. I came into game dev from primarily an audio/music background where people very rarely made suggestions on how you should do a change things. When you make music, people tend to just accept it as is and don't get nitpicky. So when I started showing off game prototype footage it really took me by surprise how much 'backseat developer' syndrome I was bombarded with. Show off a 10 second animated gif and some people writing these 40 line long replies of "Looks cool! May I suggest you do this and that and this and..." - much of which are just echoing things you've already considered on your own and maybe even have in the pipeline of planned features. I've had to work a bit on myself in that regard to be more open to that kind of feedback, because I was admittedly a little annoyed by it at first. Your little wisdom snippet videos have definitely helped put some perspective on that and helped me be more open (and critical) to suggestions and feedback ♥
When I was doing my Masters Degree in Teaching, I was told by one teacher my teaching was the best theyd ever seen, and another told me I was the worst theyd ever seen. I confronted the University and said, "Um... so... which is it?" And they didnt know. I think once you reach this stage in life, or in game developmemt, it really comes down to your values, and as you said, John, your vision, and what kind of person or developer you want to be.
In the last game jam I participated in, I made a first person horror/puzzle game. I had friends give me some pretty solid feedback that I plan on taking into account for future projects. Then the person in charge of the game jam just told me "add jumping". When I asked why he just said "because I like jumping".
Thank you. This was valuable advice. One thing I would suggest though is not breaking contact with the camera every second. Even though it’s through the screen, it makes it feel I authoritative and awkward.
I’m a songwriter/producer so also had to get very accustomed to feedback. My time lines are much shorter than that of a game dev but you checked pretty much all the boxes. I find 90% of the feedback I get is “I like it” or “ I don’t like it” and there’s not a lot of why. When I do get some strong feedback first step is to remove emotion. You naturally feel defensive when it’s something you’ve worked hard on. Then I just consider. Could they be right? Do I agree with them ? If yes, run the changes through the time investment calculator before implementing. Something else that’s interesting. As a producer and some one that works for higher. A lot of the feedback I get is directly from the client that wants something to sound a specific way. Sometimes I end up releasing/finishing a song with several changes that I did not agree with and fully feel like it was for the worse because that’s what the customer wanted. Great video.
The best way to tell when your family or friends give ''positive feedback'' to relief you from the honest truth, is when you deep down know a mechanic sucks and their first comment is ''I like this mechanic.'' They just try to be kind because that's the first they recognize and know you likely feel the most insecure about. In art it can be the nose or eye for example.
Great video! Some really good points. There’s a lot I ignore just because of my own vision and being a solo game developer, but there’s other feedback I’ll really consider and I find if something similar in feedback or criticism keeps cropping up - maybe in regards UI or gameplay mechanics, rather than the vision of the game itself - then I am more likely to act upon this :)
In one of my art classes we had to do feedback for everyone's projects every week. Hearing feedback was such a good skill to develop as well as giving it. It hurts when everyone finds a flaw you didn't know was there but it's so important to know how the art is coming across. I've also learned there's a balance between holding too tightly to a vision and letting every criticism change your project. You don't have to give up your vision but if valid criticism from many people is telling you a core part of your vision is not working, then it's okay to adjust and find creative solutions to address that. They're going to be the ones playing it after all.
Hey mate, really good content. Recently I'm watching some of your video, seen fair amount of them already, and I have to give you credit for quality of content! Really appreciate real life advises based on other devs experiences. Keep it up, there are moments when we devs doubt ourselves or products we creating, and we need some small push, some extra understanding of this cruel world, some words of encouragement. And you provide these! Keep it up! Game dev world needs you! 💚
Not blowing smoke up your arse but that's another great and insightful video. Definitely experienced plenty of X-factor syndrome in my own journey. Looking forward to enjoying the game when it comes out and thanks again for the content. Always appreciated!
In the spirit of taking and receiving feedback I thought I would try giving feedback on something that bothers me, and you or anyone else can give me feedback on how I did. First of all I think the change you showed in this video to the gameplay is very striking, and I'm very impressed by how much better the movement and fighting looks. As you said more impactful, and I would say less floaty. I also think reducing the saturation was the right call, I think it's the right direction for the style - however I think it has introduced a new problem. Maybe it's just me because I have a background in graphic design, but to me it screams "desaturation filter". It's kind of jarring that it looks like it has been run through a cheap desaturation filter. Don't get me wrong, I think the game looks great! You're a very talented artist, animator and designer. I only say this becaue I think it has such a negative impact on something that is so good. It's such a small thing, but to me, personally, it is pretty bothersome.
Great video. I get these comments/suggestions all the time on my project and you have to filter a lot out. There are the clear fans who will most of the time just compliment. The haters who just hate. The wannabe game designer who writes a whole essay on super critical aspects of the game without any insight. The guy that has to point out placeholder art or clearly in development content. And very rarely you get that one or two line comment that mention something that hits you and makes you think.
I think you are doing a good job giving shape to this game! It looks great and the mechanics have a good amount of thought after them. The only thing i am missing is a "hook". In my experience games with a good hook will stick better, like jumping on enemy heads worked so good for mario that you now see it everywhere. I know it is still a work-in-progress but i have found it to help in developement when you have that hook to work towards and around.
Great video! The main feedback I look for is whether or not people are playing it without me asking them to. My current game is a multiplayer skateboarding game, and once I saw my friends on the server playing when I wasn't running a test I knew it had potential. I also have a tetris-like game that I've played for hundreds of hours but no one else plays unless I ask them to test it, so I put it on the back burner while I try to figure out how to get people into it. There's no tutorial that will make someone want to play your game.
This project stands out from others for its realism and excellent qualities of the team, which is focused on achieving real results.I am confident in the success of this project.
Feedback on the feedback video. :p As opposed to general commentary on feedback & criticism (a whole college course, and a lifetime of navigation!) I'd actually like to see more of how your Sword & Sandals buddy helped guide you towards that snappier tactile feeling. Did you created a new tool? Rip out old code and start fresh? In the end I think feedback about feedback is a lot like talking about gamedev rather than talking about gamedev. That accursed place where therum dissolves to abstraction to the point of distraction from clarity. That moment where you talked about how your original jump was modeled frame by frame off the weight of Mario in an old video -- to me that resonated with me, and got my subscription. Because playing games, and developing games, is often about moments. Finding the fun is also about finding the moment of fun. Feedback is about moments too. That moment you made a decisions because that line of dialogue or user post resonated with you, for good or ill. I'm unsure of the value of broader criticism filtration discussions simply because the resolution of the criticism can range from "no one wants a platformer, throw away years of work," to, "this moment when the character reacts to that hit, it needs to be a quarter second faster or slower." A talk about the resolution of feedback may be what's missing here. We need a follow up video scaling down the inverse pyramid from the broad idea of feedback (big market course direction) down to minor actionable feedback (coaxing useful moments out of conversation about your game's core hook & loops.)
Love this vid on feedback it was really helpful, I to have issues with feed back, knowing whats useful and whats not. In the past when I worked as a game designer for a small game company doing mobile games. I had hard time trying to get around the whole feedback. As people had different opinions it was hard to grasp useful tips. This might also have to do with my autism as I do find it hard to read people, like figuring out whats trolling or not trolling, or whats genuine a feedback.
Another great video, John. Always appreciate your work. One point I would add to the list is this - when giving criticism, always try to find at least one thing that's working and one thing that needs improvement. Try to keep it balanced so as to reinforce the good and disincentivize the bad, without coddling people or beating them down.
As a 3d dev, Love the points you brought up. Not all feedback is created equal so to speak. For instance, the practical example of how to observe an actual playthrough seems very similar to trying to draw from memory (visualizing) or just having a reference. The former is often a symbol of what you think it looks like, the latter gives you a very clear image of how you can go about it. I'd also add a practical thought about not taking things personally & its just to point out that you can create the worst game in history & it still doesn't relate at all to your value as a person. I also think "thickskinned" or a "mindset" can be a bit misleading because in my experience taking & giving feedback is almost like a skill that's in some sense connected to one insecurity or overconfidence. In both cases, you'd probably gain a lot from being able to ground yourself (As in reminding yourself of what's important) & distance your creation from being part of you. An example I encountered a few years ago is that I wasn't as resilient ( staying impartial ) as I thought as I got feedback from someone who I truly look up to. It's gonna be hard to stay objective & disregard someone respected. In some sense, I thought it'd have to be arrogant to do so but nowadays I think it's just fine to stay true to oneself & as long as you give room for doubting too. This topic kind of reminds me of "IF" - by Rudyard Kipling in some sense.^^
Woah, I got a fright when I saw my name popup from that screenshot hahah! Anyways, regarding friends and family, I usually focus more on quality of life instead of design decisions. Really just observing to find what I may have missed that isn't immediately obvious, could be explained better, the feel of it and just using it in general. Still, to a certain extent though, I can sort of detect when some people are just being dumb.
On the art, maybe they mean that the new stuff is noiseier and harder to see the player. The old stuff the background had less clutter and the player was easier to see... all but his shirt which has an similar hue as the back ground. There is a GDC talk on this kind of thing. though. But that just me trying to get into some other persons shoes. Maybe they just didn't have the words to describe what they felt, Cheers
Great video! Personally what you mention in the video is why I've been restricting playtesting to various selected groups of people rather than publicly opening it up. Even then, some of the feedback I get just goes straight to "nice to have" or "future work" because it doesn't fit with my vision for the game for the upcoming launch.
Watching people play is great advice, in my experience you don't even need to ask them anything, their gameplay will tell you everything IF you know what you're making. Seeing when and how a mechanic clicks for each play tester, what confused them, how they solve stuff... If you already have a vision of how the game is supposed to feel, these things show you if you've been successful or not in achieving your goals with each level or mechanic. But if you really have to ask them things, try to ask objective things. "Do you like it?" and "Tell me what you like and dislike about the game" are horrible questions, ask them how they felt about particular mechanics or challenges, what they find most difficult to understand or execute, what confused them, if something in particular is clear or not, etc.
Perfectly timed. I inadvertently received feedback today about previously code I had written. I try to utilize it as a learning opportunity on how to see a different perspective on how to approach coding. The feedback wasn't necessarily easy to hear but it was useful nonetheless
Such amazing tips you give in your videos! I am really glad you sharing experience online. Personally it really helps me :) Also helps with motivation! I already launched 2 games on steam and 2 on google play thanks to motivation from you and other youtubers.
When I write feedback I try to start with the things I think are good, and with the most hopeful prognosis for the effort in general that I can honestly put forth, so they have a good idea of what I think they're doing well, and then talk about the biggest most pressing things I would suggest changing or working on and maybe say just enough about why so they understand where I'm coming from and can gauge how relevant the criticism is given what they know about their vision and so on that I'm maybe missing.
Excellent discussion points! There is definitely an element of everyone wanting to chip in their ideas and if you follow them all you end up with a Frankenstein, designed by a committee. IMO write down all feedback but wait to implement it as you may find a better fit for it later down the line.
One thing to note guys is if you make the game fluid from the start it's somewhat become harder to manage in the last levels. nerfing the animation from the start and buffing it throughout the gameplay is much better for accomplishment and balance game. but if it's just for casual then fine I guess . came to my mind with the comparison of Hollow Knight and Ender Lilies. (it's some bias preference from my side) But, I love to see the dev working in their game like this. ty for the share.
One I have happen commonly to me is blaming user error, this tends to be a go to for any issue even if its valid, the amount of time Ive spent with QA and Im a game dev myself they just assume my knowledge is nil. It must be something Ive done, my hardware, my drivers or anything else before they will take a reasonable look into it, I understand they are trying to save time but perhaps trusting a report until given a reason otherwise. I guess this would be under the larger blanket of developer bias but at some point your game is in the wild and you wont be able to look over everyones shoulders.
I let me kids (11yo son and 8yo daughter) to playtest my games. I watch them play and they tell me everything they saw wrong. They're totally honest when something is not right for them. I made some great improvements based on their feedback
Reminds me a bit of "Your audience is good at recognizing problems, but bad at solving them" - Mark Rosewater from his talk "Twenty Years, Twenty Lessons Learned" ( Highly recommend the talk: ruclips.net/video/QHHg99hwQGY/видео.html ) I think that the feedback itself is not really all that important, but the reason that led someone to give you said feedback.
I feel I have unfortunately given out the wrong advice at times and not always intentionally. When I am confident in my own ability and happy with where I am at that moment in time I am more likely to give out beneficial or even correct information but if I am struggling with a low point in my own life I am going to find it harder to give out positive feedback. If you ask for advice from someone I think it is important to weigh up their own personal goals and where they are in that progression. If that is possible. As you may get different feedback just depending on their mindset presently. It is really nice to hear your lessons though. Keep up the work with your game, it is coming along nicely.
People are so eager to give out their half baked shortsighted advice- even from fairly talented people. Whenever someone wants my two cents I always start off trying to figure out what their goals are / try to put myself in their headspace for the game. What does the dev want to accomplish? What are they really going for and how can they do that better? So easy to tear apart a project left and right because some part feels off or it doesn't fit into the current known landscape of games and that's exactly how you end up with something extremely mediocre. Chip away all of its quirks and nuanced decisions and what does that leave you with? Also very important to realize that a given game wont appeal to everyone so not everyone is in a position to give the most meaningful feedback. Some people don't get what you're doing at all and will tear it apart just because they don't like it. In my experience, the best feedback comes from the audience thats hyped for the game you're making and desperately want it to be the best it can be.
Nice video with great lessons about feedback. Part of feedback from me on the video: the audio and video arren't perfectly sync and that is distracting from the message. Could be a small setting in your recording setup. Easy fix probably :-)
I once got told that I should change the combat view of my turn based rpg game because it has too much pretty background (characters are a bit too small which left me having to make the background pretty to compensate). I told him I would rather have larger characters but then i gave him multiple reasons for why I decided to have a larger background instead. One of them being that it actually mechanically just can't be done due to how many characters are aligned on screen (think final fantasy 7 but with more lanes on each team). He proceeded to tell me I just simply "don't want to" and also that I should listen to him because I'm too close to the project lol. If you don't bring a good logically valid argument to radically change someone else's game then expect them to reject it. If you then start attacking the person and passively aggressively concluding they're just stubborn despite you having no good arguments on your side then expect them to tell you to fuck off.
I have this fantasy of creating a web site for my game where you can post problems and suggestions as threads that can be voted up or down, and then comments within those threads which can be voted up or down, and the creation and last updated dates for the threads, comments and votes are saved to a database so I can see graphs of activity for a given thread or subthread. I imagine problems, suggestions and comments having forms they fill out in which they can attach screenshots and videos. My thought is to do it with probably Bootstrap and React and with a PHP/Postgres back end on an AWS server. But I have a 100 or 1000 times more ideas than I have go power and time. And the same issues with feedback in general would still probably be present; but I might get more feedback and it might be easier to determine which specific feedback has the most current support.
Feedback is obligatory but often misguided, this is what I've found as a graphic designer. There have been projects where I've gotten what I thought was awful feedback, but I've changed things around to dig my way to a deeper issue that was definitely not obvious and the changes made the projects way better as a result. I generally don't discuss technical issues like composition, palette, contrast, typography (the important stuff) with anybody other than professional peers - meaning other graphic designers that have more experience and better work than myself. When I do find criticism on these issues I never reply or comment on them, I just make a note of it. But I always ask for feedback from everybody, anytime and I always ask for the harshest criticism possible. I don't care if something in my project is good, I care about what's not and I want to hear about everything that's crap and if everything is crap I want to know what the worst crap is. The crap needs to be evaluated - it will either be 1: intentional or 2: a project constraint or 3: derive from constraints. If it is not one of those three specific things, I will try to fix it as close to the source as I can manage. Also, project constraints and goals/intention need to be periodically reevaluated during a project development. The preproduction or design/proposal documents should capture these, but depending on the project's development - more or less blurry concepts become clearer and hard lines can move for the obvious benefit of the project.
Awesome video, one other thing I think you can add is everyone can't love your game or is not interested in the genre you are making. You can't ask a hardcore fps player to give feedback on your visual novel, identifying your audience is key to getting good feedback
Generally, you should filter feedback, not everyone understand your vision in the first place. sometime feedback is a great thing, and really helps you get better results. but even when you find a good advice, always apply that with discretion and with orientation to your own vision
I saw the comment on your last video about the new look. I'm not sure if it is the one you referred to but If you ask me the contrast between the characters and environment is reduced in the new look. For example when you showed the screenshot comparison of the old and new look. I could easily differentiate or pinpoint the character in the old look but in the new look, it is a bit difficult. I do genuinely think the effort you put in is great. I'm not saying the look or the effort is not good. I'm just saying consider looking at the colors once again for the characters or background to make the characters/interactable pop more. Another point I can add from the screenshot of the new look the tree looks interactable as soon as I saw it like maybe we can climb it or something. Do consider checking it on a PS for your screenshots or maybe have an outline. But If this is what you are going for then I totally get it. I do love your videos and it is fascinating to see your work real-time. Hope you have a massive hit at launch. Reference: 4:10
I think it would be cool to have a bleed effect, enemy takes a blow and starts bleeding slowly losing health, you could even have the AI seek help when bleeding, trying to heal each other.
I am not sure... but I learned back in school how to give usual and productive feedback o.O Mention pros and cons and find a good balance and dont always just think about one side - nothing is absolutely perfect. No good feedback only contains one side of the medal.
I released my first game about a month ago, and every review so far has been positive with some constructive criticism which I appreciate. They typed a lot for me to read. But I finally got my first negative review and I went to look at it. And all is said was “Bad…” with an hour play time lmao. It made me mad not because it was negative, but because it didn’t give me ANY feedback. I don’t even know what they didn’t like lol. Some people 😂
Let me know your tips and stories about Feedback, i'd love to hear them.
Come hang out on discord - discord.com/invite/yeTuU53
Wishlist My Game
Some very good points about feedback there! 90% of the time friends and family will just say everything is fine so I tend to focus more on looking at where they struggle with the controls or something like that. Overtime though they will get good at the game and develop muscle memory though 😉. Another way with friends and family is to gauge how excited they might be to play test the game again in a future play session. If they don't seem to happy about it, something 'could' be wrong.
Getting a general consensus is typical although ultimately the tough decisions are always down to you. It can never hurt to get as much feedback as possible as you will decide what is actionable or not anyway etc.
Great video! Often something I get concerned about 🤣.
its really fucking annoying trying to listen to this on the bus with the phone in my pocket and having to take it out to skip the ads every two minutes
@@idklol4197 take it up with youtube
Children are fantastic QA testers. My 10-year-old son is one of my most valued playtesters. While most of my family and friends sugarcoat the feedback to avoid hurting my feelings, my son truly speaks his mind. He is brutally honest and loves to break my game. Kids may not have the vocabulary to describe to you exactly what is wrong, however, they make up for these shortcomings by giving it to you short and sweet. Kids do not care about your feelings or how long you've spent working on it. They want to have fun and if it isnt there, you will know very quickly.
Agreed!
100% agree with that. I have a 6 year old nephew that loves gaming and he knows more about the world design of my metroidvania than I do lol the only drawback is that he keeps asking for newer builds all the time.
Totally agreed too. Have my 11yo son and 8yo daughter playing testing a game of mine, and they're absolutely honest when something is not right for them. I made some great improvement based on their feedback
Yeah, 8 to 12 yr olds are the best. Unlike mature gamers who go into skill mechanics and such, these kids find that one attack that they can spam to get easy wins. And now you can fix it.
I totally agree... But I am too young to have a son 😂
Working in software development, I've learned that people often provide feedback in the form of a solution, instead of a problem.
For example, someone might try your game and say "You know what would be awesome? If you added a double jump." But they don't realize the huge impact something like that can have, or how it might get in the way of the rest of the game's design.
What they might actually mean is that some platforms are too hard to reach, or that flying enemies are hard to hit... Or it might be that they just played another game with a double jump, and their muscle memory is telling them it should work here too :)
You have to be able to analyze and understand what problem they've actually identified, if any, so that you can formulate a solution that fits within your design.
I wish people would speak in that way at all the rest of the time, though. A lot of everyday interactions would be easier if everybody talked in terms of improvement, rather than what they don't like.
That aligns with my observations too. When asking for feedback, especially for projects already in a quite advanced stage it is good to ask about "pain points", not about particular solutions or features. And if possible it is often better to observe and translate it into actionable steps yourself.
I had cases where people suggested suboptimal time-consuming to implement solutions, 180 degrees opposite to what other people wanted. Instead, by focusing on pain points of all affected users, an optimal, elegant, quicker to implement and easier to maintain solution was provided. Software has versions for a reason too. At some point enough is enough. There is always something to improve or add.
It's amazing how much inconvenience people are willing to put up with just avoid confrontation, or how many user interfaces become incomprehensible because of imposter syndrome. And how many people spend 1/3th of their waking life in a software environment that they hate with a passion but never tell anyone about it, because their idea of being a "good team player" is to avoid saying anything negative.
I like watching people play for this reason, they express what they don’t like more than give wack suggestions
You should e-mail AGS and let them know, they don't seem to understand this at all.
I'm not a game developer, but I am a Product Manager and getting product feedback is a big part of my job. Some tips I've picked up are:
Whenever possible, get people to use your product (play your game) without any direction from you. If they get stuck or don't use a system you've created, that's great information about how you're communicating those features. If they aren't getting to a large part of the demo, you can give them some pointers after some time. The video did a good job getting at this point, but it's worth mentioning again.
Never offer a solution in the question. For example if you ask "Would my game be good if I added a crafting system" almost everyone is going to say yes because you're basically offering them a crafting system for free (people don't understand that adding one feature means another doesn't get added). It's generally more beneficial to ask open questions about what your feature would solve like: "What would make getting arrows and healing items more interesting" or even "is it fun to obtain items in my game? If not what would make it fun for you". You might get crafting system as an answer to these questions, you might get something totally different that you never thought of, or you might even realize that the problem you're trying to solve isn't a problem or isn't the right problem.
An easy but powerful trick I've picked up is to tell people that you're not the creator of what you're reviewing. I'll say things like "I didn't build this app, I'm just here to get feedback for the company. You won't insult me if you say it's bad". For game devs, you could say you're a friend of the developer or you were hired to do demos for them. You get much more honest feedback from people if they aren't worried about insulting you.
Great video! Everything mentioned is great advice, even for non game products!
One of the best insights I received that proved true in regards to feedback, is that people are usually good at pointing out when something doesn't work (for them), however they're almost always wrong when trying to tell you WHY it doesn't work. Your point of listening to your friends feedback but then also watching his gameplay to analyze his decisions reminded me of that.
This comment comes across very familiar after just having watched blender guru's cabin video again for the third time or so today :)
ruclips.net/video/iFQokXmqmVQ/видео.html
@@squeakybunny2776 ha I’d not heard that video before; I love it.
I used to work for a usability testing company and I oh my god, I've seen so many of these things you are talking about! people who make up problems to have an opinion, people who just want to be praised for their apps and won't take any negative feedback, people who can't accept that their internal testing can be flawed because of biases.... thank you for great videos and can't wait to play your game
You should try adding a FPS mode into your game and maybe some MMO elements! And you need to have a orchestral score because that's the best for historic games. I know it's hard but it's totally valid! Right?
Yeah yeah totally and maybe some VR in there too, oh and Viking Lootboxes and I mean maybe just make Assassin's Creed Valhalla since you're doing the whole Viking thing anyway and that's an objectively good game. Who even plays 2D these days?
Devlog incoming
maybe just drop Vikings and do Pirates.. Vikings are so 2016. Pirates are coming back I hear. 😂
@@niallrussell7184 How about cars,guns and zombies
@@jgbr6906 Zombie game? Sounds pretty niche...
"Yeah, well that's just, like, your opinion, man" -The Dude
One thing I found to be true when trying to get the right type of feedback when developing is try not to pose questions that requires solutions, rather ask about feelings, initial reactions etc. You are the designer, it's your job to find solutions. So the question is: is their game experiance the same as you hope they would have had/achieve? Yes? Great you nailed it. No ? then start to think of why that is. Only you have an holistic view of your project. What the user know to 100% is what they feel. Try capturing that right after their experiance.
Often people who "critique" to harm are often people who cannot do what you do. Envy. We're a newly formed Game Dev team and we love your videos man... You're like the game dev messiah of truth haha... Looking forward to more lessons from you! 😄
This is such a great video. I have a history in the creative writing world (novels), and in college we spent a lot of time talking about feedback and critique. One of the tactics I developed during that time in order to filter helpful feedback from unhelpful was to write a response (for myself, in a writing diary) why the feedback isn't right for my project. This conscious articulation allowed me to further refine my idea while also filtering out helpful feedback from unhelpful feedback. The idea was, if I couldn't explain exactly why the feedback is wrong, then I have to admit that maybe I should consider it. Or, I have to better define (in the novel equivalent of a design document) what my project is about, so that the design itself then filters out the feedback. As a bonus, this practice would build out my design document in a way that makes future decisions on future feedback much easier.
Thanks for sharing your insights John. I think non-verbal feedback is my favourite. You can learn so much from how someone interacts with your game without the expectation of having to give feedback.
There is also a difference between feedback that is good but requires lots of work, and feedback that is good and can be implemented without too much effort. It always depends how much an idea is worth to you implementing.
Eric Lang, a prominent board game designer, has talked about how in designing many of his games, it was often the case that the game testers would by and large agree that a certain feature was great, perhaps even the best part of a game, yet they would collectively rate the entire game lower than when testing the game with that feature removed. In other words, it'd be like if you tested 2 versions of an FPS game, with and without a rocket launcher, and everyone insisted the rocket launcher was the coolest weapon in the game, while at the same time rating the game without the rocket launcher better. This sounds counter-intuitive, but the simple truth is that game systems interact in very complex ways, and the intersection of the entire game with the subjective preferences of each player is what produces the end user experience. It's very easy to fall into the trap of thinking that making a particular thing better will make the game better when it won't. Just as an example, when you improved some of your game's art, it became obvious you needed to improve all of the art up to that new standard to make it a cohesive whole. Unfortunately, most indie developers don't dedicate the resources to properly getting feedback from gameplay testers, because it's not as obvious as writing another line of code or smoothing out a particular animation.
Great comment
I quit game dev years ago but I still like to watch your channel. Your content is super interesting and some advice can be applied to other fields other than game dev
As someone who is still starting this journey, I can already appreciate how valuable this feedback will be. I recently did a presentation and demo on game development at my work, and though I realized before I even gave that presentation, that the work I showed was still very much flawed, the feedback that day was basically all very positive. Nice as it is to receive praise, it will not make the work any better. Being burned to the ground, wouldn't make it better either, so there has to be that fine line to balance on that actually gives constructive feedback. No experience with it yet, but I hope I will get it when I need it. Thank you for taking the time, to take us through your lessons learned on this.
Context is what I'd add. Take the where and when into account.
Friends and I experienced some sort of "fair drunkenness" or "convention drunkenness" if you will. We had gathered overwhelmingly positive feedback, were given promises, and so on. But it all went nowhere. People were just hyped solely from being on such an event. I remember us being completely hyped ourselves the same night because we had taken this feedback as is. So yeah, quite a lesson for us.
The reason I want to play your game is that it meets a minimum standard (since you are a professional developer) AND the love and labour I know you put into it. Thanks for these insights - it blows me away how I can apply many of these lessons to my career as an electronic engineer and life in general! Thanks for sharing.
Appreciated the video. As an aspiring musician I find asking for feedback on music especially difficult for these reasons. 1) music is highly aesthetic so there is very few 'right' answers as most opinions are just preference. 2) music is highly emotional / personal and it can be a big ask to invite someone into that space and ask them to critique it. Poetry about oneself and singing are very vulnerable places. 3) because we are constantly bombarded with highly polished music all the time (mastered in studio, well recorded, pitch corrected) people's Ears are immediately tuned to allow smalls errors in recording or performance to completely distract them from what they are hearing. Like the guitar being too loud.
This is all to say that I have worked hard to polish my music and art and I sulfate myself from almost all feedback other than a select few and to trust my intuition alone to make the art I want to hear in the world.
The saints row devs stood their ground recently when players told them to bring back the old characters. They told the players they love the changes they have made and stand by their creative decision.
When I got my degree in game design, one class was focused completely on how to obtain feedback well and how to tell what feedback is valid or not.
The devs may love those changes but brands have an identity and you can't just slap any well-known name on your work and expect players to accept something completely different. The same happened with the new Prey which was a good game but many people were disappointed because they expected something comparable to the original Prey. That's also why Metal Gear Rising isn't called Metal Gear Solid - to communicate at first glance that this isn't the typical stealth game the series is known for.
To be fair sometimes that works out well just like bands can stay popular after changes in their musical style, but definitely not always.
Totally agree with you. I guess the only way to know if a game is a good game, is by being played. Sessions of pure observation of people playing the thing you've been developed for the last year or so can give you the user eyes, a different perspective about your game, and with that you can modify what is needed and so on. Thanks for the videos, I see them while I make my own game.
Totally agree with you.
Really enjoyed the video, it wasn't really until I took a prototype of my game to a indie game conference and had a lot of random people trying it out I was able to realize how some thing that didn't feel right design-wise were indeed probably not worth doing. I definitely value feedback from people I don't know trying out my game way more than myself or anyone I know well
As somone who playtested a few games on conferences. Be aware that you play different when you know the dev is standing behinde you. This is a case of beeing a lil creepy and be a ghost could be good.
This is valuable advice on feedback in general that translates to many parts of life and of course other forms of art.
I, for example, feel emotionally very attached to my music and it is sometimes difficult to take the feedback for what it is. That was a great video, keep it up!
The previous artwork was brighter and lighter so it had a friendlier mood, the new art is desaturated and gives more of a constant grim world, that would be the only way i could read the "the old art was looking better"
Yeah, I think it comes down to the color choice of the beard (which is covering 40% of the model) in that it is more gray. Meaning that it will blend in with the environment like an NPC would. You might even lose track of it if the model had been smaller.
Great video as always :) I like compartmentalise the feedback I receive: personal taste - needs to be investigated - needs to be actioned. If someone says 'the interface needs to be Red' then that's personal taste. If 20 people say the interface needs to be Red - then that needs to be investigated and possibly actioned - if 'I fall through the floor of the space station near the NPC '... that needs to actioned :D
Great content, thanks! One of the best bits of feedback I got on a game I made long ago (Filbert Fledgling) came from watching kids through a window. I showed up for a Xmas party and my buddy's kids were on the PC playing the game. I stood outside the window like a weird stalker in the snow for about 15 minutes watching them. It was extremely useful!
Great thoughts! At around the 11:00 mark or so, family and friends are brought up. And how it’s easier to tell someone you know their stuff is cool when it’s not. Something else to consider-though-is that the more you get to know someone, the more you get to appreciate and treasure their creative efforts. A little doodle from a friend has much more sentimental value than a doodle from a stranger. You may actually think your friends’ work is legitimately better than it is just because you like them as a person. This could be dangerous for RUclips people and Twitch streamers, then. Someone who subscribes to a channel and watches videos every week may actually-little by little-start liking the content creator more and more and may rate their art and games and such more positively. Opinions are so crazy. It’s remarkable how easily they can be influenced and such. It’s a fascinating topic.
I'm a web developer and backend engineer, not a game dev, yet a lot of your videos and experience you share, fully apply to other software development fields.
Idk why but listening to your videos often help me get into a mood for ideas. Really appreciate all the insight and advice you put forth on this channel, and as someone looking to learn game dev as yet another hobby, it’s a great resource.
Came up with an idea while watching the video and it’s simple enough even my newbie brain could probably construct a working prototype over the winter break. Cheers mate, I’ll keep this all in mind.
After finishing the video, I’d like to add that I understand the importance of gearing people towards specific kinds of feedback you’re looking for. I had my mom read some of my writing for a short story scene and she’s always helped me with writing related things in the past. I wasn’t able to garner much out of her because there wasn’t much to go off of, but now I understand a bit better the ways to approach it.
At work I often talk about lab conditions when discussing UI, which is highlighted in this video. When sitting in an office at work surrounded by like minded people it's very easy to lose touch with how a product is actually used in the real world... The example I like most is to put yourself in the shoes of the customer in this scenario, you are standing in the supermarket checkout and your payment has just been declined, now you need to as quickly as you can use the UI to solve this issue, you are embarrassed and frustrated and people are queuing up behind you so the pressure is mounting... This scenario shows how vastly different sitting in an office in a comfortable chair with headphones on listen to relaxing music while you work, could not be further from the perspective of the end user. Moral is, people live in the real world, not in your room with perfect conditions.
''Know your (intended) audience'' is a thing I would put on that list. Who you are creating the experience for matters when figuring out whose opinion should have a greater impact on your decision-making. Trying to please/satisfy/include anyone makes the experience a right fit for no one. That's one of the reasons many projects 'lose their soul' so to speak.
On the other hand, what's not appropriate for one porject can be super-useful for the next or the one after that. So archive any input you find interesting on a concept/system/abstract level, even if you have no intention to implement it in what you are currently working on.
Great video and very much everyone in the creative field should watch. Working in animation for film/TV - I quickly learned that everyone's a critic, everyone has an opinion. Even the best people in the business can give bad feedback (that's why a shot can do 100+ rounds). Purely because everyone has their own preferences to things. You have to trust your gut and the best thing to do is look at the most common notes that comes up in the group feedback and start there.
Wonderful insight.
For us lending input and support, we often have to reel it back, when a potential solution we put forward or insight starts becoming more than what it is.
We frequently revisit this internally and see where best we can identify these transitions into 'potentially bad advise / over step' inhope to mitigate it and give more value.
Personally i frequently remind requesting bodies that their input is their's and we're just here to enlighten possible avenues.
Lovely video, as always. And a very fascinating topic. I came into game dev from primarily an audio/music background where people very rarely made suggestions on how you should do a change things. When you make music, people tend to just accept it as is and don't get nitpicky. So when I started showing off game prototype footage it really took me by surprise how much 'backseat developer' syndrome I was bombarded with. Show off a 10 second animated gif and some people writing these 40 line long replies of "Looks cool! May I suggest you do this and that and this and..." - much of which are just echoing things you've already considered on your own and maybe even have in the pipeline of planned features. I've had to work a bit on myself in that regard to be more open to that kind of feedback, because I was admittedly a little annoyed by it at first. Your little wisdom snippet videos have definitely helped put some perspective on that and helped me be more open (and critical) to suggestions and feedback ♥
Really enjoyed this! Soon about to reach this stage of feedback for my app and you've brought some clarity to my fears
When I was doing my Masters Degree in Teaching, I was told by one teacher my teaching was the best theyd ever seen, and another told me I was the worst theyd ever seen.
I confronted the University and said, "Um... so... which is it?"
And they didnt know.
I think once you reach this stage in life, or in game developmemt, it really comes down to your values, and as you said, John, your vision, and what kind of person or developer you want to be.
In the last game jam I participated in, I made a first person horror/puzzle game. I had friends give me some pretty solid feedback that I plan on taking into account for future projects. Then the person in charge of the game jam just told me "add jumping". When I asked why he just said "because I like jumping".
Liked the content. One of the most genuine folks i've come across in awhile. Keep it up!
Man, I hope your game is a success. I've been following your channel for a while and I've already noticed how resilient you are.
Thank you. This was valuable advice. One thing I would suggest though is not breaking contact with the camera every second. Even though it’s through the screen, it makes it feel I authoritative and awkward.
I’m a songwriter/producer so also had to get very accustomed to feedback. My time lines are much shorter than that of a game dev but you checked pretty much all the boxes.
I find 90% of the feedback I get is “I like it” or “ I don’t like it” and there’s not a lot of why.
When I do get some strong feedback first step is to remove emotion. You naturally feel defensive when it’s something you’ve worked hard on. Then I just consider.
Could they be right?
Do I agree with them ?
If yes, run the changes through the time investment calculator before implementing.
Something else that’s interesting. As a producer and some one that works for higher. A lot of the feedback I get is directly from the client that wants something to sound a specific way.
Sometimes I end up releasing/finishing a song with several changes that I did not agree with and fully feel like it was for the worse because that’s what the customer wanted.
Great video.
The best way to tell when your family or friends give ''positive feedback'' to relief you from the honest truth, is when you deep down know a mechanic sucks and their first comment is ''I like this mechanic.'' They just try to be kind because that's the first they recognize and know you likely feel the most insecure about. In art it can be the nose or eye for example.
Great video! Some really good points. There’s a lot I ignore just because of my own vision and being a solo game developer, but there’s other feedback I’ll really consider and I find if something similar in feedback or criticism keeps cropping up - maybe in regards UI or gameplay mechanics, rather than the vision of the game itself - then I am more likely to act upon this :)
Whenever i see a long video from lost relic in my feed, i just know im in for a treat
In one of my art classes we had to do feedback for everyone's projects every week. Hearing feedback was such a good skill to develop as well as giving it. It hurts when everyone finds a flaw you didn't know was there but it's so important to know how the art is coming across.
I've also learned there's a balance between holding too tightly to a vision and letting every criticism change your project. You don't have to give up your vision but if valid criticism from many people is telling you a core part of your vision is not working, then it's okay to adjust and find creative solutions to address that. They're going to be the ones playing it after all.
Hey mate, really good content. Recently I'm watching some of your video, seen fair amount of them already, and I have to give you credit for quality of content!
Really appreciate real life advises based on other devs experiences.
Keep it up, there are moments when we devs doubt ourselves or products we creating, and we need some small push, some extra understanding of this cruel world, some words of encouragement.
And you provide these! Keep it up! Game dev world needs you! 💚
Thank you Adam, your words are appreciated 🙏
Love this Video Mate. Good job,
Subscribed.
Not blowing smoke up your arse but that's another great and insightful video. Definitely experienced plenty of X-factor syndrome in my own journey.
Looking forward to enjoying the game when it comes out and thanks again for the content.
Always appreciated!
In the spirit of taking and receiving feedback I thought I would try giving feedback on something that bothers me, and you or anyone else can give me feedback on how I did. First of all I think the change you showed in this video to the gameplay is very striking, and I'm very impressed by how much better the movement and fighting looks. As you said more impactful, and I would say less floaty. I also think reducing the saturation was the right call, I think it's the right direction for the style - however I think it has introduced a new problem. Maybe it's just me because I have a background in graphic design, but to me it screams "desaturation filter". It's kind of jarring that it looks like it has been run through a cheap desaturation filter. Don't get me wrong, I think the game looks great! You're a very talented artist, animator and designer. I only say this becaue I think it has such a negative impact on something that is so good. It's such a small thing, but to me, personally, it is pretty bothersome.
I love you, Lost Relic. Lovely video as always
Great video.
I get these comments/suggestions all the time on my project and you have to filter a lot out.
There are the clear fans who will most of the time just compliment.
The haters who just hate.
The wannabe game designer who writes a whole essay on super critical aspects of the game without any insight.
The guy that has to point out placeholder art or clearly in development content.
And very rarely you get that one or two line comment that mention something that hits you and makes you think.
I think you are doing a good job giving shape to this game! It looks great and the mechanics have a good amount of thought after them. The only thing i am missing is a "hook". In my experience games with a good hook will stick better, like jumping on enemy heads worked so good for mario that you now see it everywhere. I know it is still a work-in-progress but i have found it to help in developement when you have that hook to work towards and around.
Great video! The main feedback I look for is whether or not people are playing it without me asking them to. My current game is a multiplayer skateboarding game, and once I saw my friends on the server playing when I wasn't running a test I knew it had potential. I also have a tetris-like game that I've played for hundreds of hours but no one else plays unless I ask them to test it, so I put it on the back burner while I try to figure out how to get people into it. There's no tutorial that will make someone want to play your game.
Come on man, you're the one person who is always in touch with the reality and helping others to stay in touch as well
This project stands out from others for its realism and excellent qualities of the team, which is focused on achieving real results.I am confident in the success of this project.
Feedback on the feedback video. :p
As opposed to general commentary on feedback & criticism (a whole college course, and a lifetime of navigation!) I'd actually like to see more of how your Sword & Sandals buddy helped guide you towards that snappier tactile feeling. Did you created a new tool? Rip out old code and start fresh?
In the end I think feedback about feedback is a lot like talking about gamedev rather than talking about gamedev. That accursed place where therum dissolves to abstraction to the point of distraction from clarity.
That moment where you talked about how your original jump was modeled frame by frame off the weight of Mario in an old video -- to me that resonated with me, and got my subscription. Because playing games, and developing games, is often about moments. Finding the fun is also about finding the moment of fun.
Feedback is about moments too. That moment you made a decisions because that line of dialogue or user post resonated with you, for good or ill. I'm unsure of the value of broader criticism filtration discussions simply because the resolution of the criticism can range from "no one wants a platformer, throw away years of work," to, "this moment when the character reacts to that hit, it needs to be a quarter second faster or slower."
A talk about the resolution of feedback may be what's missing here. We need a follow up video scaling down the inverse pyramid from the broad idea of feedback (big market course direction) down to minor actionable feedback (coaxing useful moments out of conversation about your game's core hook & loops.)
Love this vid on feedback it was really helpful, I to have issues with feed back, knowing whats useful and whats not. In the past when I worked as a game designer for a small game company doing mobile games. I had hard time trying to get around the whole feedback. As people had different opinions it was hard to grasp useful tips. This might also have to do with my autism as I do find it hard to read people, like figuring out whats trolling or not trolling, or whats genuine a feedback.
This is awesome. Thank you! 😁
Glad your channel is growing! Keep up the awesome content, you're an inspiration 🙌
Another great video, John. Always appreciate your work. One point I would add to the list is this - when giving criticism, always try to find at least one thing that's working and one thing that needs improvement. Try to keep it balanced so as to reinforce the good and disincentivize the bad, without coddling people or beating them down.
As a 3d dev, Love the points you brought up. Not all feedback is created equal so to speak. For instance, the practical example of how to observe an actual playthrough seems very similar to trying to draw from memory (visualizing) or just having a reference. The former is often a symbol of what you think it looks like, the latter gives you a very clear image of how you can go about it.
I'd also add a practical thought about not taking things personally & its just to point out that you can create the worst game in history & it still doesn't relate at all to your value as a person.
I also think "thickskinned" or a "mindset" can be a bit misleading because in my experience taking & giving feedback is almost like a skill that's in some sense connected to one insecurity or overconfidence. In both cases, you'd probably gain a lot from being able to ground yourself (As in reminding yourself of what's important) & distance your creation from being part of you.
An example I encountered a few years ago is that I wasn't as resilient ( staying impartial ) as I thought as I got feedback from someone who I truly look up to.
It's gonna be hard to stay objective & disregard someone respected. In some sense, I thought it'd have to be arrogant to do so but nowadays I think it's just fine to stay true to oneself & as long as you give room for doubting too.
This topic kind of reminds me of "IF" - by Rudyard Kipling in some sense.^^
Valuable insight, very much appreciated.
Woah, I got a fright when I saw my name popup from that screenshot hahah! Anyways, regarding friends and family, I usually focus more on quality of life instead of design decisions. Really just observing to find what I may have missed that isn't immediately obvious, could be explained better, the feel of it and just using it in general. Still, to a certain extent though, I can sort of detect when some people are just being dumb.
On the art, maybe they mean that the new stuff is noiseier and harder to see the player. The old stuff the background had less clutter and the player was easier to see... all but his shirt which has an similar hue as the back ground. There is a GDC talk on this kind of thing. though. But that just me trying to get into some other persons shoes. Maybe they just didn't have the words to describe what they felt, Cheers
Great video! Personally what you mention in the video is why I've been restricting playtesting to various selected groups of people rather than publicly opening it up. Even then, some of the feedback I get just goes straight to "nice to have" or "future work" because it doesn't fit with my vision for the game for the upcoming launch.
I love seeing all the people in the comments leaving "feedback"or "criticism" who obviously did not watch the entire video
Love all your videos! I always learn something valuable from them :)
Everything here is on point, just found this channel btw and it's great!
Great advice all around and props to calling out the "smoke blower" comments... your vids (and game) are very awesome and helpful
Watching people play is great advice, in my experience you don't even need to ask them anything, their gameplay will tell you everything IF you know what you're making. Seeing when and how a mechanic clicks for each play tester, what confused them, how they solve stuff... If you already have a vision of how the game is supposed to feel, these things show you if you've been successful or not in achieving your goals with each level or mechanic. But if you really have to ask them things, try to ask objective things. "Do you like it?" and "Tell me what you like and dislike about the game" are horrible questions, ask them how they felt about particular mechanics or challenges, what they find most difficult to understand or execute, what confused them, if something in particular is clear or not, etc.
Perfectly timed. I inadvertently received feedback today about previously code I had written. I try to utilize it as a learning opportunity on how to see a different perspective on how to approach coding. The feedback wasn't necessarily easy to hear but it was useful nonetheless
Such amazing tips you give in your videos! I am really glad you sharing experience online. Personally it really helps me :)
Also helps with motivation! I already launched 2 games on steam and 2 on google play thanks to motivation from you and other youtubers.
When I write feedback I try to start with the things I think are good, and with the most hopeful prognosis for the effort in general that I can honestly put forth, so they have a good idea of what I think they're doing well, and then talk about the biggest most pressing things I would suggest changing or working on and maybe say just enough about why so they understand where I'm coming from and can gauge how relevant the criticism is given what they know about their vision and so on that I'm maybe missing.
11:50 - troll criticism: "Nobody doing anything fulfilling with their life has the energy for that kind of stuff."
Good life lesson for social media.
Excellent discussion points! There is definitely an element of everyone wanting to chip in their ideas and if you follow them all you end up with a Frankenstein, designed by a committee. IMO write down all feedback but wait to implement it as you may find a better fit for it later down the line.
Hey mate. I really admire your videos, they usually motivate me to keep going on my game with some shot of reality.
One thing to note guys is if you make the game fluid from the start it's somewhat become harder to manage in the last levels. nerfing the animation from the start and buffing it throughout the gameplay is much better for accomplishment and balance game. but if it's just for casual then fine I guess . came to my mind with the comparison of Hollow Knight and Ender Lilies. (it's some bias preference from my side)
But, I love to see the dev working in their game like this. ty for the share.
17:45 I heard "We need to carefully Pikachus..." and was saddened there wasn't a Pikachu image popping up 😅
This is such an underrated channel
One I have happen commonly to me is blaming user error, this tends to be a go to for any issue even if its valid, the amount of time Ive spent with QA and Im a game dev myself they just assume my knowledge is nil. It must be something Ive done, my hardware, my drivers or anything else before they will take a reasonable look into it, I understand they are trying to save time but perhaps trusting a report until given a reason otherwise. I guess this would be under the larger blanket of developer bias but at some point your game is in the wild and you wont be able to look over everyones shoulders.
I let me kids (11yo son and 8yo daughter) to playtest my games. I watch them play and they tell me everything they saw wrong. They're totally honest when something is not right for them. I made some great improvements based on their feedback
Reminds me a bit of "Your audience is good at recognizing problems, but bad at solving them" - Mark Rosewater from his talk "Twenty Years, Twenty Lessons Learned" ( Highly recommend the talk: ruclips.net/video/QHHg99hwQGY/видео.html )
I think that the feedback itself is not really all that important, but the reason that led someone to give you said feedback.
I just happened to realize the game is called Blood & Mead, I thought it was blood and meat, now it makes more sense
I feel I have unfortunately given out the wrong advice at times and not always intentionally. When I am confident in my own ability and happy with where I am at that moment in time I am more likely to give out beneficial or even correct information but if I am struggling with a low point in my own life I am going to find it harder to give out positive feedback. If you ask for advice from someone I think it is important to weigh up their own personal goals and where they are in that progression. If that is possible. As you may get different feedback just depending on their mindset presently. It is really nice to hear your lessons though. Keep up the work with your game, it is coming along nicely.
People are so eager to give out their half baked shortsighted advice- even from fairly talented people. Whenever someone wants my two cents I always start off trying to figure out what their goals are / try to put myself in their headspace for the game. What does the dev want to accomplish? What are they really going for and how can they do that better? So easy to tear apart a project left and right because some part feels off or it doesn't fit into the current known landscape of games and that's exactly how you end up with something extremely mediocre. Chip away all of its quirks and nuanced decisions and what does that leave you with?
Also very important to realize that a given game wont appeal to everyone so not everyone is in a position to give the most meaningful feedback. Some people don't get what you're doing at all and will tear it apart just because they don't like it. In my experience, the best feedback comes from the audience thats hyped for the game you're making and desperately want it to be the best it can be.
Nice video with great lessons about feedback. Part of feedback from me on the video: the audio and video arren't perfectly sync and that is distracting from the message. Could be a small setting in your recording setup. Easy fix probably :-)
I'm an EXPERT! Let me make a SUGGESTION:
Keep up the great work! 😉
This video needs more bloom!
I once got told that I should change the combat view of my turn based rpg game because it has too much pretty background (characters are a bit too small which left me having to make the background pretty to compensate). I told him I would rather have larger characters but then i gave him multiple reasons for why I decided to have a larger background instead. One of them being that it actually mechanically just can't be done due to how many characters are aligned on screen (think final fantasy 7 but with more lanes on each team).
He proceeded to tell me I just simply "don't want to" and also that I should listen to him because I'm too close to the project lol.
If you don't bring a good logically valid argument to radically change someone else's game then expect them to reject it. If you then start attacking the person and passively aggressively concluding they're just stubborn despite you having no good arguments on your side then expect them to tell you to fuck off.
You are really talented!
I have this fantasy of creating a web site for my game where you can post problems and suggestions as threads that can be voted up or down, and then comments within those threads which can be voted up or down, and the creation and last updated dates for the threads, comments and votes are saved to a database so I can see graphs of activity for a given thread or subthread. I imagine problems, suggestions and comments having forms they fill out in which they can attach screenshots and videos. My thought is to do it with probably Bootstrap and React and with a PHP/Postgres back end on an AWS server. But I have a 100 or 1000 times more ideas than I have go power and time. And the same issues with feedback in general would still probably be present; but I might get more feedback and it might be easier to determine which specific feedback has the most current support.
Feedback is obligatory but often misguided, this is what I've found as a graphic designer. There have been projects where I've gotten what I thought was awful feedback, but I've changed things around to dig my way to a deeper issue that was definitely not obvious and the changes made the projects way better as a result.
I generally don't discuss technical issues like composition, palette, contrast, typography (the important stuff) with anybody other than professional peers - meaning other graphic designers that have more experience and better work than myself. When I do find criticism on these issues I never reply or comment on them, I just make a note of it.
But I always ask for feedback from everybody, anytime and I always ask for the harshest criticism possible. I don't care if something in my project is good, I care about what's not and I want to hear about everything that's crap and if everything is crap I want to know what the worst crap is.
The crap needs to be evaluated - it will either be 1: intentional or 2: a project constraint or 3: derive from constraints. If it is not one of those three specific things, I will try to fix it as close to the source as I can manage.
Also, project constraints and goals/intention need to be periodically reevaluated during a project development. The preproduction or design/proposal documents should capture these, but depending on the project's development - more or less blurry concepts become clearer and hard lines can move for the obvious benefit of the project.
Game development is engineering and art both at same time, so you just do the best of it.
Awesome video, one other thing I think you can add is everyone can't love your game or is not interested in the genre you are making.
You can't ask a hardcore fps player to give feedback on your visual novel, identifying your audience is key to getting good feedback
Generally, you should filter feedback, not everyone understand your vision in the first place. sometime feedback is a great thing, and really helps you get better results. but even when you find a good advice, always apply that with discretion and with orientation to your own vision
I saw the comment on your last video about the new look. I'm not sure if it is the one you referred to but If you ask me the contrast between the characters and environment is reduced in the new look. For example when you showed the screenshot comparison of the old and new look. I could easily differentiate or pinpoint the character in the old look but in the new look, it is a bit difficult. I do genuinely think the effort you put in is great. I'm not saying the look or the effort is not good. I'm just saying consider looking at the colors once again for the characters or background to make the characters/interactable pop more. Another point I can add from the screenshot of the new look the tree looks interactable as soon as I saw it like maybe we can climb it or something. Do consider checking it on a PS for your screenshots or maybe have an outline. But If this is what you are going for then I totally get it. I do love your videos and it is fascinating to see your work real-time. Hope you have a massive hit at launch.
Reference: 4:10
Hey man, saw ur most recent videos and I found that I was wrong to judge the contrast just by the screenshot. It is looking great😀
I think it would be cool to have a bleed effect, enemy takes a blow and starts bleeding slowly losing health, you could even have the AI seek help when bleeding, trying to heal each other.
Very useful advice!
I am not sure... but I learned back in school how to give usual and productive feedback o.O
Mention pros and cons and find a good balance and dont always just think about one side - nothing is absolutely perfect.
No good feedback only contains one side of the medal.
I released my first game about a month ago, and every review so far has been positive with some constructive criticism which I appreciate. They typed a lot for me to read.
But I finally got my first negative review and I went to look at it. And all is said was “Bad…” with an hour play time lmao. It made me mad not because it was negative, but because it didn’t give me ANY feedback. I don’t even know what they didn’t like lol. Some people 😂