one way mirror, as players individually played through the game and were interviewed about their experience. This brought the players and their behaviour to life and created a deeper understanding of the player experience than a written report could ever convey. Most importantly of all, this playtest was run at the right
time. By uncovering how players thought and acted before committing to production decisions, the team minimised the risk of having to make expensive late changes or throw away completed work.
INSPIRATION FOR PRODUCTION The results from this vertical slice playtest were very encouraging - early ratings for the game were high (much higher than I often see in titles at this stage), and the qualitative detail behind those ratings helped inspire ‘what resonates with players’ - steering the design direction of the game and providing lots of inspiration for marketing opportunities. Players’ opinions also helped inspire decisions about the
final balance and pacing of game modes - helping create an experience that gripped players throughout the main campaign (let alone coming back to improve their scores). Concrete behavioural data refined how the games
controls and mechanics worked, and how this was communicated to players - including committing to a new control scheme, to avoid the overly demanding swap between buttons and thumbsticks, removing unwanted friction with jumping and manually and ensuring that the tutorials set players up for success and avoid early churn.
AN ONGOING PROCESS Despite the impact of this single test, learning from players is an ongoing journey. This test was an early step on Fireshine Games’ growing expertise in research, which has continued by building an in-house research pipeline, and running follow up studies diving deeper on accessibility. Playtesting is a core part of Fireshine Games’ philosophy: “I always say it’s better to know it from ten slightly
confused testers than from 300 angry steam reviewers,” Creative Producer Julian Bird says. “You never can
predict what people are going to say or what people are going to do in front of your game and being open to that has changed how we approach projects. It changes how developers approach projects. Just be open to that because the customer is mostly right most of the time” he adds. “If it’s negative it can be a great motivator, if it’s positive it can be a great motivator.”
APPLYING THESE LESSONS TO YOUR OWN TITLES As we’ve seen, timing was crucial to the impact of this playtest on Denshattack!’s development - exposing the game to players early when there is still time to make changes, rather than learning about big problems too late to act on them. Bringing the team in to view the sessions live, in a
playtest lab, created a shared understanding between publisher and developer of what was resonating with players, and unlocked collaboration - leading to conversations based on real player data rather than conflicting opinions. Lastly, expertly targeted recruitment helps build
data the team can trust - especially with genres that have passionate audiences, such as score-chaser games. Rough definitions of ‘hardcore’ players aren’t enough - validate the specific titles and level of experience with each that players have (especially when gamepass can mean a wider group of players have technically ‘played’ the game than you’d expect). It was clear from the earliest pitch decks that
Denshattack! has style and a strong creative vision - and high-quality playtesting helped ensure that players experienced that vision as intended.
Steve Bromley is an experienced games user researcher who works with studios and publishers to run impactful playtests throughout development. Get his free book ‘Playtest Plus’ at
gamesuserresearch.com
September/October 2026 MCV/DEVELOP | 45
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