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Comment by marijn | Hacker News Reader

> you should probably not think in terms of the release that ends the project

Yes. I want to stress this some more. I know several people who are/were working on big ambitious projects in a kind of stealth mode, citing concerns that their idea will be stolen, or emphasizing that it isn't "ready yet". I suspect this is usually rationalizing a fear of criticism.

A single-person personal project shouldn't be worked on in isolation for more than a few months. You'll lose perspective. Feedback is extremely valuable. It'll help you grow your idea, and it'll help you abandon something that's not going anywhere. (The same probably goes for small teams.)

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Reminds me of the story on how "Settlers of Catan" was created.

"Every once in a while, he would bring the new game upstairs to test it out on his family. They would play along, but Teuber could tell that the game wasn't working. Sometimes, in the middle of a match, he would notice his youngest son, Benny, reading a comic under the table. Other times his wife would suddenly remember a load of laundry that needed immediate attention. After each of these sessions, Teuber would haul the game back downstairs for further refinement. He repeated this process over the course of four years..."

http://www.wired.com/gaming/gamingreviews/magazine/17-04/mf_...

That's the way to do it. Settlers of Cataan is a massively successful game, probably more than most videogames. Lots of lesson to take away from that article.

Do you have any advice on how to put it in front of users to get feedback? Friends are good for a while, but they're biased. Just go on IRC and ask a few folks?

Coffeeshop, Craigslist posting, take it to local game events (IGDA meetings/etc), contact local game schools and bring it there for testing (game schools are everywhere)...

Depends entirely on the project, of course. But putting up demos, preferably as web pages, if that's not possible as a binary, tends to be a great way to show the world what you're doing. Open-source of course makes it easier (just throw it on github). Subreddits, irc, HN, and forums make great channels to get people to look at something. Another good approach, but that only works if you're near a big population center, is to find a relevant user group and do a talk there.

Some friends host a games night, which I expect nets them a good number of testers.

You could also just go to a coffee shop. The pitch I'd try: "Hey, I'm making a game. If you try it for 5 minutes, I'll buy you another drink." If people keep playing beyond the minimum, you know you're getting somewhere.

Personally, I wouldn't use IRC much, because then I can't watch people in action. I don't make games, but I regularly watch people using software I've made. Their words may lie, but their expressions and actions usually tell the truth.

You might also have people try a few games, with only one of them being yours. People like to please, so you can just say, "Hey, I'm doing some market research on video games; would you try these?" If they don't know which one is yours, you may get much better answers.

The TIGSource forums (forums.tigsource.com) are a good place to get feedback online, and has sub forums dedicated to both playtesting and devlogs. Quite a few well known indie games (Minecraft, Fez, Cube World, Papers Please) first appeared on the TIGSource forums.

4chan.org/v/

Depends on the technology you're using, for Flash Newgrounds is a great resource, even the worst game normally gets tried 500 times.

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