What is Ingression?
Ingression is a precision platformer being developed by a small team with one coder and a few part-time sound designers, artists, etc. The game pays huge respect to and was inspired by Portal and Celeste, and is set in a far-future where a thief, Rina, must steal time machine modules from the Evil Empire™. Rina needs to go through a spaceship base filled with lasers, giant worms, holograms, drones, spikes, and many other things that can kill.
Echo Chamber and Playtests
Developing a game with a small crew can create an echo chamber effect. Everyone is close to the project, and of course, everyone loves it (Otherwise, why would they be working on it?). And that's great, until... you need objective feedback. You need external opinions to be sure that the game you're making is working. And here's where our struggle becomes real. Unlike companies like Valve, hiring a battalion of playtesters just isn't an option.
Yes, demos, trials, and festivals offered some possibilities to test our game and vision, but feedback was often limited in time (for example, we couldn't wait for the Next Fest or prepare everything for the open playtest at Steam in the coming week). So, Ingression needed something more specific and targeted as soon as possible since we were close to release. We needed all of this to polish the changes made after the open playtest.
Speedrunners and Their Help
Then it hit us: we are making a game for quite hardcore players, including speedrunners. What if we ask speedrunners to try the game and then tell us their thoughts? Since a list of games that are similar to Ingression had been collected for a long time for marketing and research purposes, the only thing left to do was to go to Speedrun.com and YouTube, type in the names of these games, and write to those who might be interested in the game.
It's important to write to speedrunners short letters and provide the key in the first letter/message. Don't try to say something like “if you're interested, request the keys and I'll send you the keys right away, blah, blah, blah.” This is an additional action for those who might be interested, so there will be fewer who agree. Just write that you noticed them because of their very cool runs on the game Y, you are working on game X, here is the key, and we'll be happy to hear feedback. Often, speedrunners agreed even if you just write to Speedrun.com, but, to be honest, the messaging system is really terrible and inconvenient there.
The Impact of Speedrunners
We captured the feedback in spreadsheets and asked for videos or logs if something went wrong. Among those who wrote feedback or impressions of the game, a third of the speedrunners were able to find softlocks in various places and provide the necessary info so we could reproduce and fix them, and half were able to find some in-level bugs (apparently, not without the help of their ability to find easy and quick ways through the game). And, most importantly, almost everyone wrote their feedback about the movement mechanics, which we asked for separately. As a result, we ended up with a very informative table, with the help of which we were able to further improve and finalize the remaining mechanics.
By the way, watching speedrunners discover unconventional ways to beat levels was a very unusual experience (in a good manner) for our team.
Final Thoughts
Thanks to speedrunners, we were able to realize that the mechanics in the game really got better. Jumping on platforms and using portals became much more enjoyable, and later, this was confirmed by the game reviews and feedback from influencers. So this story had a really good effect on the project at some point.
We noticed one interesting thing: the less popular and “pop” the game, speedrunners on which you write, the more chances that the speedrunner will answer you.
And don't forget to thank your speedrunners. This can look many different ways, for example, we've added to the credits those who have given us any feedback or comments. It's nice for small players and speedrunners to be mentioned in the game, and it leaves a good impression. And remember, they are not a free labor force and QA testers. They can do something of their free will, or not. But if they do, please, make at least something for them.
Also, a side note: this all took place a few weeks before release, but from the effect we felt, I'd recommend trying this earlier in development as well. We will definitely do that in the future with suitable projects.
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