I've made an iOS game, now I need feedback on it so I can improve it. I've tried asking family and friends but they give a biased opinion. What are some better ways?
FeedbackMyApp is pretty good for this, you can add you game and other developers will give feedback on ways to improve it. I think you can only do it if your game is on iOS or Google Play. Check it out here: http://FeedbackMyApp.com
One of the better way to get feedback is watching other people play rather than asking questions, just peeking over the shoulder and see how they get on...if it looks like they are having fun etc...if things work as I had expected...does their gameplay style give you new ideas... Afterwards it's of course good to ask a few questions. Depending where you live... there might be a meet up group for play testing / developers. http://www.meetup.com Although these people would still be more developer oriented than most of the players so maybe a local coffee shop could offer a whole bunch of testers if you invite them for a coffee...free coffee & free games... now who could resist that!
Getting useful feedback with a limited budget can be tricky. Friends and family aren't really the way to go because of bias and to get somewhere you need roughly 9 responders from your target audience to catch 90 % UX related issues (well known graph) - it's not set in stone, but it should give you an approximate idea. So how do you catch 'em all? Sadly, it will nearly always cost you some money. But if you are a daring type, some guerrilla testing might work for you which is pretty low budget . Find out where your target audience hangs out or a place where they should use your app Tell them your story and show them your app Give them a task or two Observe them And give them something nice as a thank you Oh and for the love of any-deity-you-believe-in follow blogs like http://www.uxbooth.com and read case studies like mobile app marketing insights. It helps to be up to date with various approaches and learn from others. EDIT: Something cool to check out -> http://usabilitygeek.com/usability-testing-mobile-applications/
Start with https://www.reddit.com/r/iosgaming/, and take a look at some of the other iOS-related subreddits.
The best kind of feedback (IMO) is to get people you don't know already to play it in front of you. This way you can see what's happening. My favorite thing to do? Walk into a bar with my device in hand and, after getting to know the person a bit, get people to try it.
That should work! And sounds cool. If the person is interested in the game, words of mouth are worth a million! But I wonder how you find a right target?　Getting to know them a bit first and then asking for feedback, wouldn't that be too obvious? Love to hear from your asking-for-feedback story XD
Anyone willing to make small talk is the person you want to test on. Put your device on the counter, one of the first questions *always* asked is 'what do you do?' *BAM* hit them on the head* with your game and you'll have your feedback. Even if it's not their type of game, you can still get valuable UX feedback. *Don't actually hit them
What are you using for analytics? If you do not have analytics in your game that can show you live, real-time bootups, screens, buttons tapped, levels reached, etc. you are wasting your time trying to get feedback. People you personally hand your game to will, out of obligation, play it longer than they might if they downloaded it on their own device. For completely unbiased feedback, go with the numbers. They will tell you the majority of what you need to know.
Analytics tells you the 'what' but not the 'why'. They answer different questions, but both are 100% required! (Edit to add) You also have to have a sufficient population to get good data out of analytics.
