A client approached The SilverLogic with the idea of creating a reliable platform with robust survey functionalities to reach out to playtesters over the internet. Our client, Well Played Research, required that their platform allow for qualifying and disqualifying users for further surveys. If a user doesn’t fit within a target demographic or needs to have played a certain game to be able to comment on it, the system needs to intelligently change the survey to make the most of the user input session. Furthermore, some questionnaires are routine, and the system needs to record longitudinal user data without prompting playtesters with repetitive questions. WPR didn’t need just another survey platform; it needed a robust and automated Q&A engine.
The SilverLogic created an ideal tool for creating and managing playtesting surveys. We created an engine for generating questions, setting them as qualifying or disqualifying based on certain criteria, and compiling them into forms for users worldwide. Additionally, we created an admin archive that records playtester answers for further insight. Questionnaires can change depending on how they are created, probing further into playtesters’ experiences to enable the most in-depth data Well Played Research can find.
Using a Django admin portal with the Grappelli extension for flexibility, we built the admin backend for the survey platform. Here, the questionnaire designers at Well Played Research can select from various implemented question types—from short text entry to multiple choice to numeric free response—and individually mark them as qualifying or disqualifying, enabling whitelist and blacklist logic. For instance, players who mark a specific game genre as their favorite may unlock an additional question about that genre or even qualify for a follow-up survey specific to their demographic in the future.