When did you know you game was ready to go public / into alpha testing (if ever)?

[Sociopathix]

Hey there! I've been a lurker here on TGM and VPL for quite awhile now, and have been working on my own VPS / ARPG browser-based game on and off for a couple years (at least 3 - 4 years). A little over a year ago, I purchased a domain name and database hosting. I had reached a wall when it came to testing the database on my local machine, and in all honesty found it easier to use the actual database lol. Anyway, this is when I became pretty serious about working on my site, which originally was just a relaxing "turn off my brain and code" project, plus it was some fun web design practice, but now it's become a full project that I'd like to finish at some point.

The entire site is written from scratch, I'm sure it has issues (definitely security-wise...), but I feel like I'm getting close to the point where I could possibly open it up to a small closed alpha / soft launch in the next year or less. Really the only content that's really lacking is the actual assets (think pets, items, etc.), which I've been slowly chipping away at, though I find programming much more tangible and easier to motivate myself to work on. Plus, if I'm going to have people testing the site, I really want them to be looking for bugs and exploits in the site itself, rather than the lore / visual content, etc. Thing is, I'm not confident in this assessment, so I wanted to ask other site owners how you knew when your project was ready (or knew it wasn't ready) for alpha / beta testing?

Some questions:

• How did you know your site was / wasn't ready to soft launch or go into alpha testing?
• If you worked alone, how did you balance programming and asset creation?
• What features do you think are absolutely necessary for alpha testing? Eg. forums, trading, battling, etc.
• Do you find it okay to have a lack of assets, lore, extra features (eg. games, quests), etc. during the testing phase, or do you think it's best to have a chunk of finished content beforehand?
• How much moderation did you have? Do you think you should have had more / less moderation?
• How did you gather a group of testers / alpha players? I currently don't have really anyone I trust that's actually interested in browser-based games but I also know I'm not ready to launch the game to just anyone.
• If you could change something or go back and tell yourself something before you opened for testing, what would it be?
• Any additional tips or advice would be appreciated as well!

As for the features I've created for the site, here are the main ones:

• A forum with topics, threads, posts, and a partially complete moderation system (I'm currently working on post / player reporting right now, actually).
• Account registration / sign in, as well as a simple customizable profile page.
• Pets and their basic stats / functionality, though features to make it worth your time to feed / play with your pets is only about 50%-ish done at this point. I'd like to add professions and skills to pets later on, but it's not on the top of my list currently.
• The pets also have private pages for their owners to manage them and then public pages to display custom profiles and whatnot.
• An inventory system that allows you to put items in your pets' inventories, feed / play with items, move items to your storage, donate items, and send items to other users. 
• A trade market that is about 90% complete with listings, offers, etc.
• A barebones fetch quest page that I've been working on and would later like to evolve into a full questing system.
• An NPC shop system that restock at given intervals of time, as well as an NPC donation shop, which is where items go when you donate them and sell for 1 IGC. The system is built, I just need to make the actual individual shops and choose their stock.
• A very barebones adoption system, which is probably where the site is the weakest. I'd like to add some sort of random chance or seasonal system to allow players to get new pets, though I haven't settled on what I want exactly yet. I'm not considering a breeding mechanic at this time.
• A skeleton of a possible crafting / recipe system, which is what I'm considering tackling next after I finish up the last trade market page.

I plan to add some more things, but I feel the main features that make the site functional are mostly there. Anyway, I just want to hear your thoughts and advice. Thanks for reading!

[Recurrence]

I’m part of a team of two. We’re not in alpha yet, but we’re preparing for an optimistic soft launch this year. So while I can’t offer a perspective from a game that’s “made it”, I hope I can offer an alternative opinion. My personal measure of whether the game is ready for alpha is:

• It has a complete and functional core game loop. (In our case, our virtual pets are cats. Training improves stats, higher stats win competitions, competitions award currency, currency funds breeding and the acquisition of more cats, breeding leads to better cats, and so on.)
• If visuals (or lore, or quests) are the game’s main draw, then it should have some basic/sample assets done, as part of the minimal viable product (MVP). Alpha testers should check whether the game is fun, too.
• An easy way to report problems and offer feedback (could be forums, live chat, support ticket system, etc.). As friction-free as possible.
• In terms of security needs, it sanitizes user input and hashes passwords. In essence, whatever protects users (but this usually comes for free in modern frameworks). If open to the public, then additionally whatever protects the server. The level of security deemed acceptable varies depending on whom you ask, but I prefer to be on the cautious side.

@Sociopathix Have you gathered any new insights or experience since you posted this?

[Sociopathix]

@Recurrence Thank you very much for your reply! After a little bit of time away from the site and constantly working on it, it's clear to me there's still a lot to do. However, I still really want to do some controlled testing within 1 - 2 years, and I think it's possible at this point, as I've completed a lot of the site features. More than anything, I need to focus on content creation and building the progression system to a playable state, because although the site is functional, it's barren.

Do you have any advice on finding players for playtesting / soft-launching? I'd like to have testers who are genuinely interested in VPS / browser-based games, but not make the entire site accessible to the public. Do you think it's a good idea to post here on OGD, or use social media? I'm not sure where to start on that front. Does your site currently have a social media presence?

Thanks so much for your experience, I found it really helpful.

[Recurrence]

(Just wanted to reiterate that I’m still learning about this and in no way consider myself an expert or close!)

For sure, how to find testers and attract your intended audience is the eternal question. Which reminds me, I do have a project I’ve tried to launch in the recent past that’s provided an excellent teaching moment for myself. It’s not a browser-based game, but I think the experience bears similarity. The situation was: we worked for two years straight, from developing a business plan to building the product (ah, SaaS). Only when we reached a workable state did we begin to market it, and by that I mean we tried social media, communities for startups, a small paid signal boost here and there. (This project is still on hold.)

My key takeaway is: start working on marketing now, in terms of getting heard and building hype. If you’ve already internalized this, then hey, it’s a great reminder 😄

We’re much more technical / creative work-oriented people, my partner and I, and not well-versed in the social / business side of things. Maintaining a mainstream social media presence, chugging through marketing playbooks, and tweaking the landing page / SEO to death led to rapid burnout for us. (If you have business savvy, those are probably viable strategies.)

I think the best balance is to play to your strengths, which means:

• Maintain a social media presence, if you genuinely thrive in that social space
• • And pick your platforms well. My partner took charge of our Twitter account for our first project, and ultimately felt demotivated by the typical tweets that proliferated in that particular SaaS startup sphere. For our current game, she’s found Mastodon to be a more casual and welcoming space.
• Leverage your existing social media / community presence, if you’re fortunate enough to already have one. Say, an existing social media account, blog, art platform, Discord channel, even a browser-based game you’re playing, if it’s allowed. (Many platforms permit off-site links in user profiles, for a start.) Ideally you have at least a small following / reputation. I think even if a VPS / PBBG is slightly off-topic, a small signal boost can help. For extreme cases, popular artists/personalities transition into game development with ease (this post about Dappervolk provides a concrete example).
• Otherwise, if content creation is your strong suit, create an account on a platform that caters to that type of content (art platform, video/streaming channel, fictional writing maybe?) and post often, even if it’s only tangentially related to your game
• Write updates in a devlog, especially if the game’s mechanics are your selling point. Great for search-engine optimization, sating people’s curiosity in game dev, generating hype about your game’s specific mechanics, and I’ve personally found it clarifies the mechanics for myself and my partner. In-depth writing is a wonderful analysis tool.
• • For our game, I maintain a devlog (with slightly altered wording to suit the platform!) on our game’s blog, here on TGL, and on TIGSource (although the presence of PBBG’s is vanishingly rare)
• Again, if content creation is your strong suit, your devlog can primarily focus on that content (art, for instance)

I haven’t directly addressed your main question regarding how to source alpha testers specifically, but I’m personally taking the same approach as listed above. (After generating a lot of buzz, Dappervolk’s team ran an application process to source 100 or so alpha testers, according to a fan wiki.)

I don’t have much experience with game directories, but if it’s low-cost in terms of money and time, it’s worth a shot. I think word-of-mouth is a stronger bet for our niche. We might eventually create mainstream social media accounts, but more as an alternative to our main platforms (blog, Mastodon, TGL, TIGSource).

Hope that helps, or at least refreshes you on something you already know!