>> (But yeah, I'm sure *real* game design isn't nearly as interesting as 
>> it sounds. Listening to the commentary on HL2:EP2, most of it sounds 
>> pretty mundane.)
> 
> Apparently it's the same with being a game tester, repeating the same 
> section over and over again in various minor different ways until it 
> breaks.

Yeah - generally they don't just go "hey, play this game, tell us if 
it's fun or not". They want to know something more specific than that.

Again, listening to the commentary from HL2:EP2, they tell you stuff 
like "this map used to be like X, but we found that playtesters would 
get here and not be able to figure out what they're supposed to do, so 
after a few iterations trying various things we made it like Y, and 
playtesters responded much better to that".

So yeah. They want to know if the game is fun. But if it isn't, they 
want to know specifically *why* so that they can actually *fix* it...

(And I'm sure they also have other people who just play and play and 
play the game and see if it crashes or glitches in some way. And still 
other people who try it on various hardware. And yet others who try to 
climb out of the levels or throw switches in the wrong order to see what 
happens. Damn, making games has gotta be real expensive...)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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