Love at Elevation -- BETA TESTERS NEEDED

A dating sim set in Boulder, Colorado. Can you navigate the landmines of modern romance?

Email me, jason AT choiceofgames for access. DO NOT SEND ME A MESSAGE THROUGH THE FORUM MAIL SYSTEM. When you send your EMAIL, include your forum-name, your real name, and the game you want to test.

DO NOT POST ASKING WHAT MY EMAIL ADDRESS IS. The first test to becoming a beta tester is inferring what it is based on the above paragraph.

(You cannot be testing two games at once. Send feedback on one and you can apply to another.)

I will send you a link, a username, and a password.

Return feedback TO ME. Preferably part of the same thread, rather than a new email.

I’m looking for “high level” and “low level” feedback. Not mid-level feedback.

Low-level = typos and continuity errors. A continuity error is when a character’s gender flips, or someone comes back from the dead, or you run into a plotline that just doesn’t make sense (because it’s probably a coding error).

For these low-level issues, SCREENSHOTS are VERY HELPFUL. If you see a problem, take a screenshot, or copy and paste the text that is in error, and email that. Also, the “BUG” button is great; but if you use BUG, make sure to say in your email who you are, so I can give you credit for the report.

“High level” feedback has to do with things like plot, pacing, and characters. “Scene A didn’t work for me because x, y, and z,” is useful feedback. “B character was entirely unsympathetic, because u, w, and v,” is also useful feedback.

“Mid-level” feedback describes things like grammar, style, or the use of commas. As I said above, I do not want mid-level feedback. In particular, DO NOT WRITE TO ME ABOUT COMMAS.

“I had a great time and saw only a few spelling errors,” is not useful feedback. In fact, it’s the sort of thing that results in you not being given access to future betas.

Some examples of useful feedback:

In Choice of the Dragon, you get to choose what type of wings you have: leather or scaled. Someone wrote in and asked about having feathered wings. Great suggestion! Done!

In “The Eagle’s Heir,” someone asked about Eugenie. They said that the romance moved too quickly–because she only appeared in the last third of the game–and wished they could have had an opportunity to meet her earlier. So the authors added an opportunity to meet her and start the romance earlier in the game (in a scene that already existed).

In “Demon Mark: A Russian Saga” several people commented on how the PC’s parents were unsympathetic, so the authors added a choice or two to deepen the relationship with the parents in the first chapter, to help better establish their characters.

Similarly, pointing out a specific choice and saying, “this is who I imagined my character was at this particular moment, and none of these options seemed right for me. I would have liked an option to do X instead,” is really helpful feedback.

Another useful piece of feedback: if you choose an #option and then the results of that #option don’t make sense. Like, if you thought an #option might test one stat, but it seems to have tested a different one.

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People there is a reason (spambots) Jason does not write out his mail address.

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I just sent out a batch of invites, but there were more people than I want to admit at the moment.

If you sent in a request and didn’t receive a response, please be patient. With the next draft I’ll send another batch of invites. If you need to withdraw your request, please send a follow-up email in the same thread.

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New draft posted with many fixes.

A few things I want to acknowledge about this game and the feedback I’ve gotten so far:

*It seems like for most people the entire premise of the game–juggle romances with 3+ people–is fundamentally flawed. Most people offering feedback wanted a game about one romance. I can’t change that at this stage. It’s too baked in.

*A lot of times the original writer would refer to an NPC by their name/gender/gendered pronouns in the first half of the sentence, and then use singular they , not a coding error , in the second half of the sentence. Like “Mary wants you to help her make this game better, but they don’t have a clue how.” I’m fixing those. I don’t have a problem with singular they or it being used this way, but it seems like most people find it confusing/think it’s an error.

*There isn’t an asexual option in this game. There just isn’t. I really, really wish I could code one in. But I can’t. I have tried to create more options for people to avoid sex scenes, but if that’s not your bag/it’s triggering for you, whatever, just let Jason know you won’t be giving any feedback or additional feedback on this beta.

*This game narrates player emotions and actions. Yes, it does. It does that all the time, and I can’t undo most of it. It is very baked in.

*I’ll try to take in any more feedback ya’ll have, but I’m mostly just trying to crunch bugs.

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New draft posted!

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New draft posted, in particular tried to vanquish bugs in the Teahouse scene if you had or had not already met various NPCs.

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