I took Vicarious to a playtest. They told me to stop adding features.

I was nervous letting people play Vicarious on Thursday.

I’ve done a couple of playtests with close friends, mostly trying things here and there and making sure the cross-platform multiplayer worked. Bringing it to the StudentVenture cohort on 22 October was the first time I’d had a session like this with people outside that circle.

I felt pretty confident in what I’d built, though. I went in expecting to come home with notes on how to improve it. Bugs to fix, things that needed explaining, things that made sense to me because I’m the person building it.

I got some of those notes. But the response was much better than I expected.

Getting people into the game

We had around three or four people playing, with others watching, asking questions and getting me to explain how things worked.

We spent time in character creation, which people really enjoyed. Then we tested joining each other’s games and interacting in multiplayer. People played chess, explored the job system and asked about how they could work together.

What stood out was how much people liked the freedom to go to different places and do stuff together. Multiplayer got a really strong response. It was good to see people enjoying something I’ve spent so much time getting to work.

Liam (founder of StudentVenture) even described it as better than The Sims. That was huge for me to hear.

It was a small session, and there’s plenty more testing ahead, but hearing that from someone actually playing the game meant a lot. Getting feedback from gamers is useful because they can tell you what would add that extra bit of life to the experience.

“Stop adding features”

That was probably the most useful feedback of the day.

I kept talking about what I wanted to add next. In my head, I need to keep building more into Vicarious so it can be a serious competitor to the games already out there.

But the people playing were telling me it already felt fleshed out, polished and fun. They saw multiplayer as a huge selling point on its own. Their response was that it felt ready to get out to players.

I’d gone in thinking about everything I still needed to add. Hearing people say they wanted to play what was already there gave me a lot to think about.

What I’m doing now

Since Thursday, I’ve fixed some of the networking issues we ran into, and I’m tying up loose ends.

I’ve started putting together the Steam, Epic Games Store and Meta Quest pages too. The session made me feel more confident that I could bring the release forward. I haven’t settled on a date yet, but I’m looking at the work ahead with a different perspective now.

There are people who want to play Vicarious. I’m looking forward to getting it into their hands and seeing what they do with it.

Huge thanks to Liam, Werksy and everyone at the StudentVenture coworking session who played, watched and asked questions. I came away with bugs to fix and a lot more confidence in the game.