Playtests are a common way to organize and get feedback on your game, both from your internal team members, or players from your community. Live Aware provides functionality to make organizing and operating playtests easy.
Adding Playtesters
On the left side of your dashboard, you will find a Playtesters heading. This allows you to view and organize all playtesters across your entire workspace. You will see all team members added to this list and marked with the Internal tag. Here you can create External playtesters, which is any individual you’d like to give access to Livestream a playtest, without giving them access to log into your Live Aware dashboard.
Click Playtesters in the left sidebar
Click the + icon next to Playtesters heading
Fill out the playtester’s details
Select Yes or No for Authentication. Selecting Yes for Authentication means this playtester will be required to authenticate with a Live Aware profile to participate in Restricted playtests.
Click Save
⚠️ When creating a new playtester with Authentication set to Yes, the playtester will immediately receive a notification email, and will be invited to create their Live Aware profile.
Managing Playtesters
You can edit playtester information or delete playtesters completely to ensure you have an updated playtester database.
Editing Playtester Information
Click Playtesters in the left sidebar
Click on the three-dot menu that corresponds to the community member you’d like to update information for
Select Edit
Edit information
Click Save
Deleting Playtesters
Click Playtesters in the left sidebar
Click on the three-dot menu that corresponds to the External Playtester you’d like to delete.
Click Delete
💡 Deleting playtesters from your Playtesters view will delete them from all Events.
Creating a Playtest
Playtests are defined under each Event by selecting Playtesters. There, you can setup your playtest and manage playtester direct invites and shareable links.
Complete Playtest Setup
Before running a playtest, you must enter a few specific details.
While in an Event, Click Playtests in the upper Event bar.
Select the Platform for your playtest: Windows, Mac, or iOS/Android. This will determine the specific invite instructions that are given to your invited playtesters.
Set the Stream Title and Stream Identifier to determine each Stream Name.
Set the Playtest's Start Date, Start Time, End Date, End Time, and Timezone. Playtesters will not be able to stream before the Start Date and Time or after the End Date and Time.
Set Instructions with your Pre-Playtest Message and Post-Playtest Message. These will displayed to the playtester in the Live Aware Recorder.
Click Save.
Inviting Playtesters
Once you have completed the Playtest Setup, you can now invite playtesters with either a Shareable Link or a Direct Invite.
Creating a Shareable Link
A Shareable Link is a URL you can easily distribute in your community channels, and playtesters can use the link to participate by streaming to your playtests with the Live Aware Desktop Recorder. A Shareable Link can be set to either Restricted or Anyone with the link. Restricted Shareable Links will only allow authenticated playtesters within your workspace to particpate in the playtests, while setting Anyone with the link means that authentication is not required.
While in an Event's Playtesters view, Click Invite Playtesters
Click Enabled.
Select the Access level for your Shareable Link, Restricted or Anyone with the link.
Click Save.
Copy the generated link by clicking Copy link.
ℹ️ Currently Shareable Links are only supported by the Live Aware Desktop Recorder for Windows, other platforms are coming soon.
⚠️ You cannot disable a Shareable Link while a playtest is live. If this is necessary, you may change the playtest's End Date and End Time to end the playtest.
Directly Inviting Playtesters
You can also directly invite playtesters to participate. Depending on the platform selected, they will receive either a generated link that can be used only by them (Windows), or a playtester code (Mac, iOS, Android).
While in an Event's Playtesters view, Click Invite Playtesters
Click Direct Invites.
Click Add Playtesters to select playtesters from your workspace's Playtesters roster.
You will see a preview of the email they will receive.
Click Send All Invites when you have confirmed the information is correct and you are ready to send invitation emails.
Updating or Ending a Playtest
Once you have created a playtest, you can go back to the Playtest Setup screen to modify settings for the playtest.
While in an Event, Click Playtests in the upper Event bar.
Make any changes necessary to Platform, Stream Name, Playtester Duration, or Instructions.
Click Save.
ℹ️ After saving changes to a playtest, you will be prompted to send out update notifications if you have already sent out direct invitations to playtesters.