Every author knows that problem;
They write a game and need some input from outside, someone who can give them feedback on what they wrote. Authors tend to skip mistakes because they already have in mind what they wrote and just sometimes don’t notice the problem.
That’s where the almighty Alpha / Beta Testers are needed. They offer their free time to read the story the author wrote and point out mistakes that the author didn’t see, and offers a way around the problem. Beta Testers are not essential, per say, though they are a great help and make the story more ‘fluent’. The flow of the story can be influenced in how well a Beta Tester looked at the text and their problems - if there even are some to begin with.
So, here we are. Stranded authors who don’t know whom to ask when they search for Beta Testing, as not everyone who volunteers gives back some kind of feedback. The authors are annoyed by those who look at their games for free without contributing one thing, even if it would be something remotely as simple as pointing out some typos.
A Beta Tester usually focuses on the text of the story; are there typos or grammatical errors? Is it in the right tense or is there a mistake in the continuity? How would that sentence sound with these or that word instead of the one used?
Of course, they can also look for some coding errors, be it in the Stat-Screen or in the game itself. One little misplaced sign or just a wrong indent can ‘break’ the game to some degree.
That is why some of us decided to create a list we users and authors can use when we are looking for Tester for our stories. The list contains all of the Beta Tester Extraordinaire (those who have sustained, frequent, and valuable feedback during the beta phase of a game, title granted by @jasonstevanhill) as well as those who don’t have a fancy title, though help us out in the same way.
Thanks to everyone who provided us with information and helped us out during the phase of Beta Testing! You are truly magnificent and we appreciated your help in every way. You’r input showed us where we need to focus more, where our problems lie and how to solve those problems.
Please keep up the good work!
This list is probably by no means finished, as there are quite a few who are contributing to the community and help us out a lot. Though, of course, I can’t know everyone and thus would like to know from the community itself, who they think are good Beta Testers and why. The list is supposed to be a reward for those who are taking their time to search for the mistakes of others and offer help to fix those little, pesky problems.
If you would like to add someone to the list, then please reply and state the person(s) who had helped you out in the past with your game.
By no means do we want to hear who is not good or who didn’t offer feedback. Sure, there might be some who don’t reply after receiving a link, though this is not the place to discuss this. Please refrain from shunning others in this thread.
I hope that this works out how I planned it x)