Play the Game You Are Developing
Play Your Own Game: The Secret to Successful Game Development
As game developers, we often get caught up in the technical aspects of our craft—optimizing code, creating assets, and implementing features. But there's a simple yet powerful practice that separates successful game developers from the rest: playing your own game. Regularly.
The Ultimate Feedback Loop
When you play your own game, you're not just testing it—you're experiencing it as your players will. This creates an invaluable feedback loop that no amount of theoretical design or planning can replace.
The Enjoyment Test
The most fundamental question in game development is deceptively simple: Is your game fun?
If you find yourself reluctant to play your own creation, that's a powerful signal. Ask yourself:
- Do I look forward to testing my game?
- Do I keep playing even after I've tested the feature I was working on?
- Do I feel a sense of enjoyment, not just professional curiosity?
If the answer to these questions is "no," then your players will likely feel the same way. The good news? You've identified the problem early, while you can still fix it.
Bug Discovery in Context
Bug testing in isolation is inefficient. When you play your game naturally:
- You discover bugs in their natural habitat
- You experience them as a player would
- You understand their impact on the gameplay experience
- You find unexpected interactions between systems
A QA tester might methodically check if a jump function works, but only by playing the game will you notice that jumping feels unsatisfying or that the jump height makes certain levels too easy.
How to Play Your Game Effectively
1. Schedule Regular Playthroughs
Set aside dedicated time—ideally weekly—to play through your entire game from start to finish. This helps you:
- Maintain perspective on the overall experience
- Ensure new features integrate well with existing ones
- Identify pacing issues that aren't apparent when testing isolated sections
2. Play Like Different Types of Players
Alternate between different playstyles:
- The Speedrunner: Rush through as quickly as possible
- The Completionist: Try to find and do everything
- The Novice: Pretend you don't know the controls or mechanics
- The Explorer: Focus on finding the boundaries and breaking things
Each approach will reveal different insights about your game.
3. Record Your Sessions
Recording your gameplay serves multiple purposes:
- You can review moments where you felt confusion or frustration
- You can share footage with team members or playtesters
- You create documentation of your game's evolution
- You might capture unexpected bugs that would be hard to reproduce
4. Take Notes While Playing
Keep a notebook or document open while you play and jot down:
- Moments of frustration
- Unexpected delights
- Ideas for improvements
- Questions that arise during play
The key is to capture your genuine reactions without immediately switching to "developer mode" to fix them.
Let Your Game Guide Development Priorities
One of the most powerful benefits of playing your own game is how it naturally reveals development priorities:
Identifying Pain Points
When you play regularly, certain issues will begin to irritate you consistently. These friction points—whether they're UI annoyances, control issues, or gameplay imbalances—should rise to the top of your fix list.
Discovering Missing Features
Often, the most important features to add aren't on your roadmap yet. They're the ones you naturally wish for while playing: "I wish I could save here" or "It would be great if I could compare these items."
Recognizing Over-Engineering
Sometimes we spend weeks perfecting systems that players barely notice. Regular play helps you identify where you're over-investing development resources on features that don't meaningfully improve the player experience.
The Harsh Truth: If You Don't Want to Play It, No One Will
Perhaps the most valuable insight from playing your own game is the most brutal: if you, the creator who has poured your heart into this project, don't genuinely enjoy playing it—why would anyone else?
This doesn't mean you should abandon your project at the first sign of boredom. Instead, use your lack of enthusiasm as a diagnostic tool:
- What aspects make you reluctant to play?
- When do you find yourself wanting to quit?
- What would make you excited to play one more session?
The answers to these questions are your roadmap to a better game.
Conclusion: Play, Iterate, Repeat
The cycle is simple but powerful:
- Play your game
- Identify what's working and what isn't
- Make changes
- Play again
This loop, repeated consistently throughout development, is the surest path to creating a game that not only functions well but genuinely engages players.
Remember: if you're not having fun playing your own game, you're not making the wrong game—you're making the game wrong. And the only way to know the difference is to play, play, play.
