Are we sure about that 1995 version, The Independent?
Steve Bromley
@stevebromley.bsky.social
🎮 games user researcher, author of books about user research | led playtests for some games you’ve heard of, many you haven’t. No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here.
Meet the team behind The Lost Wild, coming to you from Brighton, UK, in our latest developer diary and get a sneak peek at new footage. See firsthand the team’s commitment to bringing scientifically accurate dinosaurs to life, and the terror of what that means for players as hunted prey.
Watching old episodes of Gamesmaster - it was fun to spot @garywhitta.bsky.social reviewing Warpspeed on SNES.
A decade after it was discontinued, Alien Blue has stopped working for me. I suspect that’s the end of Reddit for me, as I don’t get on well with the “new” layout or the official app.
My recent MCV/Develop article looked at how early vertical slice playtesting helped Denshattack! keep their creative vision on track. I’ve written a longer version on the website, here: gamesuserresearch.com/confident-cr...
Confident Creativity: Vertical Slice Playtesting for Denshattack! | Games User Research
How early lab playtesting put Denshattack!’s development on the right track
gamesuserresearch.com
Continuing to quietly beat the drum of "Designing without testing is like painting with your eyes shut."
Reviewing Sound on a 100 point scale - Metacritic couldn’t handle the review scores of the 90s.
A rundown on narrative playtesting by @stevebromley.bsky.social. I’m a big believer in conducting proper user research if you have the access and means to do it. Golden data.
How to playtest your game’s story | Games User Research
How to safely approach testing both comprehension and appeal for the story of your game.
gamesuserresearch.com
Seeing so many user research-adjacent platforms promising "instant insights" - two words that shouldn't go together. You can't get insight from one clip, one player, one moment. That's a data point. Insight is only gained when you find the context - often a long, multi-faceted, multi-channel thing.
If you’re at Develop this week, look out for my article in MCV/Develop about playtesting for story appeal & comprehension - The magazine is free for attendees.
Wow, amazing review scores for Denshattack! Was great to be small part of the journey!
Tinsley@officialtinsley.bsky.social · 4mo agoCmon ride the train! Denshattack! scores: IGN 9 Eurogamer 10 Comicbook 10 TheGamer 10 HeyPoorPlayer 10 WhatGaming 10 GameReactor 9 ButWhyTho 9 Outerhaven 9 RestartRun 9 Gamersheroes 9 Worthplaying 9 CGMag 9 PSU 9 Noisypixel 9 Kakuchopurei 9 GameInformer 8.5 store.steampowered.com/app/2524850/...
Like much of the UK games industry, I'll be at Develop this week. Tuesday & Wednesday is pretty packed, but let me know if you're around on the Thursday and up for a chat about playtesting, games user research, or seagulls.
Checking spelling on Google - this automated summary hurt my brain...
I’ve posted it before, but it feels evergreen The two hardest problems in Computer Science are 1. Human communication 2. Getting people in tech to believe that human communication is important
Jake Anbinder@jakeanbinder.bsky.social · 7mo agoI think we need an inverse thread where we talk about things that normal intelligent people universally agree upon that are for some reason hot takes within your profession
Great talk, including showing the impact of research studies to help inspire and inform decisions throughout iterative development!
Jordan DeVries@jordandevries.com · 7mo agomy GDC talk on jedi: survivor's lightsaber customization system is finally public/free to watch— see unreleased concepts, hear my hot takes on UI and count how many times I fix my glasses gdcvault.com/play/1034223...
Finished Expedition 33, a while after everyone else. Not normally my genre, but I was hooked by the mystery of the prologue, and couldn't put it down.
Games are complex systems, requiring multiple disciplines to go in the same direction often without a clear map of where we are going- it’s why team alignment is one of the most hardest parts of game development: www.eurogamer.net/new-report-c...
New report claims Crimson Desert's development was plagued by "a hodgepodge of features crammed together" and leaders who "don't acknowledge anyone who doesn't share their exact mindset"
Two Pearl Abyss developers have claimed Crimson Desert was developed in a troubled environment, characterised by an inv…
eurogamer.net
Enjoying Parseword this week, from @josh.powerlanguage.co.uk It feels like I’m learning a skill (how to do cryptic crosswords), creating an incentive to stick with it each day.
It's Tuesday: #EnduringPlay day! We move from last week's research of games on the market to very practical playtesting of individual #videogames while they're in production with @stevebromley.bsky.social, author of How to Be A Games User Researcher, with something for all. #gamedev #uxresearch
Ideaplatz@ideaplatz.com · 8mo agoS2 E3 of #EnduringPlay: A #GameDev podcast is live with games #userresearch expert @stevebromley.bsky.social. Whether you're a practicing researcher or an indie developer questioning "is this the right experience for my players?", there's something here for you. sites.libsyn.com/586820/s2-e3...
Excellent thread from @maxnichols.bsky.social I see this frequently when working live service & mobile teams who are lucky enough to have an active Discord - they represent *some*of your players, & have a big sway on vocal opinions, but don’t represent the vast majority of your player’s behaviour.
Max Nichols@maxnichols.bsky.social · 8mo agoAnd... listening to vocal minorities is effortless. Unavoidable, even. And you have this insidious thing that happens where ALL the feedback you're getting is from this narrow cross-section. It is your entire window into the player experience. You're blind to problems that this subset doesn't see.
gotta remind myself that other devs know the score and understand when I say that - I've been in the industry for 5 years, and tomorrow is the first time a game with a significant amount of my work is gonna be played by the public... I'm so nervous!! and proud!! please play the Denshattack demo!!
My lukewarm take Spamming LinkedIn requests is not networking. Stop advising people trying to break into the games industry to do this Networking isn't a game you can min/max, it's about actual personal connections. Shitposting on Bluesky is a better networking tool than blind LinkedIn connections
A excellent piece on why 'Design by Reddit' is a terrible replacement for actual user research. Keeping a finger on the pulse of social media sentiment can be an important *complement* to understanding your users (and even add context to your research responses), but can't replace #GamesUR
christina 死神@chhopsky.tv · 9mo agoToday's Load-bearing Tomato addresses the age old question: "why don't the devs just [SOCIAL MEDIA OPINION]" It turns out, "a lot of reasons", but if you never have to test your ideas, you never have to discover why they're not any good. loadbearingtomato.com/p/why-chasin...
Xbox Research is looking for feedback on accessibility options in video games!
Anna Waismeyer@risukora.bsky.social · 9mo agoXbox Research wants to hear from anyone who plays video games! Tell us which settings and accessibility options, like text size adjustments, single-input options, screen readers, you use in our survey! survey.alchemer.com/s3/8671308/X... #Accessibility #GameAccessibility #InclusiveDesign
The IGDA GURSIG is happy to announce the #gamesUR Summit 2026 in Helsinki, Finland this May 2026. We look forward to connecting our community again! Keep an eye on our website for details. www.gamesur.com/coming-soon-... #GamesUR #UserResearch #GameDev
Coming Soon (Conference) | Games User Research Community
gamesur.com
This is the core issue with tools promising to automate playtest/UR data analysis. We run studies to find new answers. Hallucinations create plausible sounding answers. There’s no way to identify what the hallucinations are without doing the same analysis yourself.
Andrew Cherry@kolektiv.xyncro.com · 9mo agoHow? How do you double-check the accuracy, if you're not already an expert? Ask a different GenAI? Or do you, you know... Have to go and do the research you would have done anyway, pre-AI? Because I'm buggered if I can think of how you do that in a way where the GenAI saved you time.
Last year I ran a lot of playtests on “difficult” games - it was a big year for soulslikes. One challenge came up again and again: How do you handle difficulty in a genre that’s famous for being hard?
