Giggle Me Timbers - Looking for Game Testers

So as some on here may know I’m currently making a game. Here is a bit of background information into it.

The game is called “Giggle Me Timbers”.

What’s the game about?

In a world at peace, where guilds are the ruling class, where pirates have been eliminated, a young man (known to you as our hero) has taken the plunge and spent all his money on buying a ship and becoming a merchant trader.

He arrives in a new world after travelling from his homeland and finds that not all is as it should be. He’s confused, in over his head and quite frankly, out of his depth.

To understand our hero you need to know his background. He had an upbringing with his mum and dad who loved him very much. He was educated and always had a roof over his head. No wait, his background is quite normal. But our hero has a sad story. No wait, no sad story here either. So what is our hero’s tragedy? Well, he is a bit simple at times but with his heart of gold he’s ready to try anything!

So help out our hero as he grows into a capable human being who helps out everyone he can, but doesn’t know how to help them! Help him become a respectable merchant trader by sailing and trading at 55 ports from around the globe.

Talk to guilds who find it amusing to make you work for nothing, taverns keepers who somehow control the world market in drinks, banks who hate when you withdraw your own money and market folk who will stop at no ends to take advantage of our hero.

So will you, take up the challenge and be our hero’s guardian angel, or will you sink him to the bottom of the seas? Ship up and get ready to be amused in “Giggle Me Timbers”.

The game is sandboxish and is mainly a commodity trading game.

So what i’m after is basically a couple of game testers.

What does a Game Tester do?

A game tester receives advanced copies of games in order to thoroughly test the game prior to public release. They must navigate all the menus to ensure that everything works correctly and takes the player to the correct sub-menu or stage in the game. If the game has more than one mode of play, such as beginner, intermediate or advanced, the tester must play through each of these modes from start to finish to expose any glitches. If the game offers play as more than one type of character, the tester must also play through the game with each character or avatar.

During gameplay, the tester attempts to discover hidden bugs by attempting every possible move or decision a player might make during normal gameplay. The tester may even attempt to do things within the game that an average player might not do, such as trying to get stuck in a wall or obstruction within the game. This type of bug is known as clipping. Once the character is stuck, the player is often unable to free the character, making further gameplay impossible. Testers note occurrences of these and similar game malfunctions.

In addition you will also find typos and grammar issues.

After discovering a bug, game testers must write a description of what occurred along with directions that accurately describe how to find the bug in the game. After submitting this information to the programmers, testers may be asked to test revised editions of the game in order to create a stable version.

It is repeatative work and you really need to perservere before deciding to put your hand up for this.

What’s in it for me?

The game mechanics are about 95% completed but the story / plot / quests are only 15% done. The game is playable (as far as the missus and I have tested). I’m happy to include you as a non playing character (NPC) into the game! This could mean your very own side quest mission. I’m also happy to include additions you may find are necessary or would be a bonus to the game. You will also be credited for your time as a tester and will receive a steam key as well on full release. You won’t be paid, i’m working on this game practially full time.

What are the system requirements?

The game is currently built on a PC but I do have a MAC export option. A current tester has had awful success though with security issues for MAC but if you know your stuff i’d love to have a MAC expert on board! Later there will also be Android and iOS options but for now it’s strictly mac and pc.

The lowest spec i’ve tested the game on is an i7 950 running an R9 380. That’s not a minimum though as i’m sure this will run on lower spec systems.

The game is approximately 500 megabytes in size. Please be aware you need a fair amount of data to continually download updates. I will keep these sizes to a minimum where possible (I can rip out audio which will help) but don’t be surprised if you are downloads ends up being in gigabytes.

What do I do now if interested?

PM me and i’ll let you know further details. I will be needing your phone number as well. You can go as an alias in the game / credits but I need to talk to you (or use whatsapp for example) as well if I need to check something with you. Please keep in mind there is a non disclosure agreement you automatically agree to if you wish to be a tester. I would cry if you leaked my game out in the world when it’s not ready or have someone copy it and put it on the market before I do.

Lastly i’m generally a night owl. So availability during evenings would be good but not essential.

I like pretty pictures. Can I see some of your game?

Thanks for reading and hope to hear from you!

12 Likes

Great looking graphics, dude.

Thanks!

I would have some interest for sure.

That’s the kind of game I’d really enjoy playing. Unfortunately I’m working with a laptop from 1845.

What specs are your laptop? I’d love to know what sort of hardware it ‘could’ run on.

Hi and thanks for your interest? What spec computer are you running at your end (mac, pc)?

core i7-2600 cpu @3.40 GHz 16GB RAM

No clue. It’s an i7 something.

I can run Morrowind and Oblivion with a few graphics mods with no problems.

Show me the money!!!

Now that I got that outta my system - should be able to help. I’ve done heaps of enterprise level testing (I’m a project manager (hides)). Should be a bit of fun…

You should be able to run it if you want to try.

Yeah for sure. As you said you can see if it runs on toasters.

Any others interested? You can just play and give feedback if you like.

Confidentiality clause still applies.

Hey mate,

Haven’t run into any issues - 1 suggestion. In the map - can you add the location name (once discovered). Felt like I was going around in circles trying to remember which way to go.

I can look into that. It might get crowded though once you get to somewhere like Europe. For example the ‘starter’ area has something like 9 ports. Europe has 19 I think. Would a dot representing the port suffice?

Alternatively i’m also working on sextant co-ordinates and a guide book. So for example once you find Hong Kong it will list in your guide book with the co-ordinates. You need to obtain both for ‘saved’ navigation so to speak.

Yeah, maybe. Even a first letter?

Leave it with me. I’ll see what I can do :slight_smile:

Hmmm, placing the town names on the map is going to be difficult. The font is going to be tiny and it’s going to be blurry. I can do points as at least it won’t flood the map?

So the red dot is you and the yellow dots are ports (they aren’t ports as I’m just testing).

I can make the yellow dots only appear after you travel to a port for the first time as suggested.

Is that yellow okay or do I need a better colour?

Thoughts?

I have no idea on this stuff, but could you scroll over, (double tap) whatever, on the dot.to bring the name up ?