Testing the fun

Well, it's been about a month since my last post. I haven't said much.  Partially because I haven't done much.  Another consulting gig has kept me busy.  But also what I have been doing is mostly uneventful things that I haven't felt like talking about.

Getting a per-round splash screen working, getting different graphics and palettes for different rounds, etc.

But I did decide it's far enough along to actually start play-testing the fun.  Before I get much further, I need to know if I'm remotely on the right track.  First I got a coworker to play a 2 player match with me just to see if it seemed playable.  Despite some bugs, that worked out ok.

Tonight I made my family play with me.  My son (8) loved it. My daughter and wife put up with it.  That was a better test.  We found a few bugs and confusing things, but it seemed like there might possibly be some fun involved.  (Although the girls didn't exactly play competitively) I still need to get a few people that actually LIKE video games to come over and test and see how it plays.

So far it seems.....ok enough.  Not amazingly exciting (which I hoped) or completely boring (which I feared) or just completely broken (which seemed possible).  It's really hard to design a really exciting party-style game, so I'm fine with "ok" for my first shot at it.

Time to make some tweaks, fix a few bugs, then hopefully recruit some testers over the Christmas break....