Every Friday we try to get something ready to test out. I’ve found that it’s a good idea to record the playtest, even if you’re just just doing a quick test, or testing something specific.

Here’s a recording I made today of my Tub prototype.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y15kttLqbkk

Before I started doing this I’d write bugs down during gameplay. That might cause you to not see other bugs, but more likely you’re not going to want to stop playing and write down little things, so you’ll tell yourself you’ll remember them, but you don’t.

Sometimes you’ll get bugs that you don’t understand. Being able to play it back frame by frame can help you understand what went on. If you’re seeing bad performance at a particular stage you can take a look around and try to work out what may have caused it.

From a game design point of view, being able to watch yourself play gives you a whole different take on the game. You can spot areas of the game that fall flat when they should be giving positive feedback. You’re not watching what you’re doing so much, so you can track other players and work out why they were getting confused.

From a historical point of view, it’s nice to keep hold of these recordings. Being able to look back on the development of something you’re working on is always nice, but you could also use it to see if a bug you’re seeing was around x weeks ago too.

Game Bar

If you have Windows 10 recording your shit is easy. Just press Windows key and G and the game bar will pop up. In the settings you can set a key to start/stop recording, this is probably what you want to do.