Q&A

Just to give a little background as to what we mean by Q&A:
Q&A and Alpha testing is the methodical and social testing of the game, its smaller elements and mechanisms that make up a rough reaction to the finished piece.

We've not finished the game to a standard in any area, so Beta testing is not the correct term to be using, as it's all still in Alpha stage.

We've tested the game in a few different forms. The first was a public test of the maze. This was a multi-platform test that stressed the system for possible breakages on a few different machines (other peoples laptops). The test faired quite well, though at the time wasn't using some of the optimisations that we're currently using.
The results from this were mixed, and the problems we encountered (like getting stuck in certain areas, mainly after falling) were fixed, or will be fixed.
We also, on the revelation of falling into new areas, have started a new mechanism of falling damage that will mitigate the problem. Another mechanism we may use after more testing of the maze are is the 'Death Box'. This is a non-visible box that kills the player on entering, and will be placed in areas we have tested that the player could get stuck in.

The overall tests are not near completion, as there's not enough scripts to emulate the game-play.

However the Q&A will be done over a linked download with multiple people accompanied by a questionnaire that will address some of the issues we may need to ask about.

(as we're making a game and not a film, this replaces rendering and quality - as we don't conform too much to those tools)

[edit]

I've started to really code the game together now, and I'm not 100% at the point of letting it out into the public, though am testing it myself, and trying to break lots of areas. There's unfortunately lots of areas to lock-off and protect from gamers that I'm able to get into, so it's going to be a fair while until we'll be Q&A'ing publicly.

[edit]

90% of the game's code is now written and functional, and the game can be played through completely. It's only missing a few aspects, like concepts (for a single texture) and lighting. I'm going to start sending this out soon to get an understanding of what's going wrong on a final build.