Critique 4
Game Feel

Game feel (often informally referred to a Juice) is the tactile sensation that people feel when they play games. A juicy game makes interacting with it feel engaging and rewarding. This can be the result of eye-popping animations, strong sound effects, or just responsive input.

To help you understand this concept, you should watch the video Juice It, or Lose It. This illustrates the types of things that we are looking for in this critique.

This critique will take place in Discord, just like the previous critiques. Once again we will use the playtesting channels to pair up groups.

Preparing for the Critique

In this critique you are going to be paired with another group. You will play that group's game and give them suggestions on how to improve the juiciness of their game. In a way, this is something that we have been doing in all of the playtesting sessions so far. But we want this particular session to be a deep dive that focuses on juice over general gameplay.

That means that you must have a build of your game available for this class. It can be the same build that you used for the previous playtesting session. But if you have done a lot of work on your game, it is better to have a more recent build. Post a link to the most recent build in your playtesting channel on Discord.

Critique Format

This is a newish critique, so we do not have set format for it. Each group should take turns receiving and giving feedback. In the time alloted, that means 20-25 minutes per group. The group making feedback suggestions should be the ones sharing the screen (because they are essentially the ones playtest). If you want to swap out players during the critique, that is okay.

Remember to focus on game feel elements in your feedback.

• What could be done to make the animations more satisfying?
• What could be done to make the sound satisfying, but not repetitive?
• What could be done to improve input responsiveness?

When time is up, the groups should switch. However, they are free to remain in the same playtesting channel.