Closed group beta testing started yesterday for Where the Arc Falls.
This is the first time the current build is being played by a small group outside the development process, so I am now starting to get the kind of feedback that is difficult to get while knowing exactly how every puzzle and interaction is supposed to work.
At this stage I am mainly looking for places where players get stuck, misunderstand what the game is asking from them, miss important clues, or find solutions that are technically possible but not satisfying. I am also watching for the less interesting problems: bugs, broken state, unclear interactions and anything else that only becomes obvious when someone plays without me sitting next to them.
I also published Episode 2 of the development journal: Adventure Game Puzzles Shouldn't Feel Like Escape Rooms.
It goes into how I am approaching puzzle design, why I want problems to feel like they belong naturally in the world, puzzle dependency charts, and where AI has actually been useful in the process.
The next few weeks will probably involve a lot less adding and a lot more fixing, simplifying and rethinking things based on what the testers actually do.