Hello all,

I’m currently working on a multiplayer game for the browser where players have to build cities, conquer regions and gain tradegoods, a bit like Civilization. The game progresses at fixed intervals regardless of whether the players are online and they only have to check on their empire for a few minutes each day. Now I’m looking for a couple of people that would like to play this game with me and share their view on how they think the game could be improved. As the players don’t have to download anything and they don’t have to be online at a fixed time it should be rather easy and flexible for the test players, but I’ve no idea where to find them.

So I’m wondering if some of you can tell me how you found your test players or if you have any tips for me to solve this issue.

It's an interesting question - are their online communities of people who enjoy not developing games, or playing mainstream ones, but testing in-development games? You'd think there must be people who find this side of game development interesting, but I never heard of such a site.

Ask friends. Join a community of some kind, spend time being part of it, and then ask if anyone there wants to give you a hand. (Generally signing up on forums just to look for help gets considered as spam, but if you actually play the game or genuinely take part in the community in question then requests for help after the fact are better received.)

However, random help like that can be unreliable. Friends often don't want to be too harsh, or will look at everything with the friendly rose coloured glasses. Random people online are likely to give poor and unfocused feedback, and getting real testing on features or concepts out of them can be similar to herding cats.

Depending on your project then you may want to look into hiring dedicated testers. (Bias warning, I'm actually employed as a professional software end-use tester, but I've had the 'pleasure' of dealing with community feedback for projects we've tested, and it can be painful compared to the structured, detailed, and targeted reports actual professionals tend to generate.) Also pay extra for a company with testers in a country that speaks your native language and is well aligned culturally. Sure you can 'save' money and pay a fraction for something overseas, but it is very easy to lose all those savings in frustration and inefficiencies that grow out of language or cultural barriers.

Good luck with your project.

My friends aren't into these kind of games so I'm not expecting too much from their feedback, and indeed they might be biased as well. I feel like regular people that enjoy playing 4X games would give the best feedback as they're the target audience, but perhaps I'm wrong. How much do professional testers cost?

It's an interesting question - are their online communities of people who enjoy not developing games, or playing mainstream ones, but testing in-development games? You'd think there must be people who find this side of game development interesting, but I never heard of such a site.

I would really like that. As there are a lot of idea-guys you would say there are plenty of people that would like to realize their ideas in the form of aiding a developer, without actually having to go through a year of coding.