Playtesting is a really important part of game development and it was something we needed to do a lot of. 

The most beneficial playtesting we did was when we ran a tournament and had a whole new group of people playing Toy Rumble. It was great because they had never played the game before and got to view the game with a fresh perspective. Many of our family and friends also played the game and us as developers also spent a lot of time playtesting. 

Playtesting with our families:

One good thing about lockdown and studying at home was we were able to get our families and housemates to do a lot of playtesting. 

Play testing with families allowed for players to be constantly learning and to evolve the meta of the game as one player learns the in's and outs. Having frequent playtesters meant people were playing the game and could see the changes as they're happening and they have a more in depth understanding of gameplay allowing for more interesting battles. This helped identify characters that were either too strong or too weak.

Playtesting Tournament: 

Outsider viewers/players of the game.

We found some small issues within maps in terms of design, people getting stuck, glitchy spots etc.

We learnt that if everyone plays as the cat its hard to know which cats are yours and it becomes very chaotic when all the abilities are used at once. We also got a lot of information about balancing. 

Having outsiders opinions on the game is also really great from a design perspective. Everyone loved the aesthetic of the game and overall feel and we got some great feedback about including some more interactive environmental elements.