The Playtest vs Userplay

The Playtest is a free playtesting tool focused on indie game studios. It helps teams create a project, define testing needs, set tester requirements, publish a playtest, gather guided survey feedback, and use responses for decisions. Recruitment can target platform, genre preference, region, and experience level. Studios can review applicants’ profiles, platforms, and experience before approval. Feedback forms can be designed, responses compared, patterns identified, and reports exported. CHAP, the built-in AI assistant, helps connect studios with testers, structure forms, and surface insights from playtest data. Testers browse open playtests by genre, platform, and region, then apply. Their profiles can show platforms, hardware, and testing history. The site says setup can take under five minutes. Testers do not receive direct build access unless a studio grants it. The service describes itself as a focused studio tool rather than a marketplace or social network. Studios can create an account and run their first playtest at no charge, with no credit card required.

Userplay is playtesting infrastructure for game studios, bringing tester recruitment, key distribution, session capture, review, and feedback into one workflow. Studios can recruit and screen players from Discord communities, then review session replays with bugs, feedback, and standout gameplay moments surfaced automatically. Voice transcripts help teams interpret player responses, while post-playtest surveys and custom forms collect structured feedback. The platform lists compatibility with game engines, game stores, desktop operating systems, and web games, including GameMaker, Defold, Godot, Unity, Unreal Engine, Steam, Epic Games, GOG, itch.io, Chrome, Windows, macOS, and Linux. Discord supports recruitment and key distribution; Mailchimp synchronization supports targeted campaigns. In the browser recorder, configured tracks are captured locally and video and audio upload after the session. Microphone capture is off by default, webcam video is not captured, and players must consent before recording. Production and recording data is hosted in the United States, with TLS 1.2 or higher in transit and AES-256 or equivalent encryption at rest. The free Indie plan is free; paid plans start at $99 a month, billed annually.