AI Dungeon Environments & Becoming a Tester

Now that the web and app versions of AI Dungeon have been updated with Phoenix, we now have dedicated environments for Production, Beta Testing, Alpha Testing, Internal Testing, and Legacy. Our motivation for creating these dedicated environments is to make sure that our Production environment, which the majority of you use each day, is stable. We also wanted to create dedicated environments for gathering player feedback during each stage of the development process. Each environment has a specific purpose and audience.

Environments

Internal Testing

Although code is written on the individual machines of our dev team, changes get pushed to an Internal Server so that our entire Latitude team can preview features & test fixes. This environment is updated many times a day as we work through our priorities.

Alpha Testing

Once a new feature has been built according to our design, we then seek out player feedback. Our Alpha testers (we call them Pioneers) provide the first round of player feedback in the development process. New features from Internal get pushed to Alpha so they have access to test and provide feedback. This is often an iterative cycle, where feedback is given, new changes are developed on Internal, and then pushed to Alpha again for further review.

This environment is only available to Pioneers. See below on how to become a Pioneer and participate in Alpha testing.

Beta Testing

The next stage for product development is Beta testing, which is open to all AI Dungeon players. In Beta testing, we’re looking for additional feedback from players on whether or not new features are valuable. We also evaluate performance and stability since Beta is the first time our code will be exposed to a high volume of traffic. It’s not feasible for us to test every device and configuration internally, or to perfectly simulate production traffic and behavior, so Beta gives us a chance to assess whether there are issues we were unable to catch.

All players are welcome to participate in Beta testing by visiting beta.aidungeon.com. Now that Phoenix is released to our native mobile apps for iOS and Android, the "Release Channel" setting allows players to choose to use Beta or Production versions of the native apps.

Production

Our Production environment is the most stable version of AI Dungeon. We only push new features to Production after they’ve been thoroughly reviewed in each of the previous environments. By default, all players are directed to the Production environment.

Legacy

For a limited time, the Legacy version of AI Dungeon will be available at legacy.aidungeon.com. We’ve shared on an earlier blog post why we’re retiring Legacy. Please feel free to reach out if you have any other questions about the transition.

Becoming an AI Dungeon Tester

These new AI Dungeon environments mean more players can participate in testing AI Dungeon. Some of the benefits of being a tester may be interesting to you. For instance, our testers get to preview unreleased features. Our testers also get to have frequent communication with the Latitude team, and they are able to shape our roadmaps and provide input on what we work on next. Our Alpha testers, specifically, also get a few other benefits, like unlimited access to Heroes.

Testing AI Dungeon

To get started, simply start using the Beta environment. This can be done by visiting beta.aidungeon.com, or by selecting the Beta environment from the "Release Channel" dropdown of your Account Settings in the mobile app.

Then, use the bugs-feature-requests channel in Discord to provide feedback and log bugs. Be sure to follow the directions for logging bugs, or submitting feature requests.

Becoming an Alpha Tester

In the past, we’ve had an application process to join our Pioneers and become an Alpha tester. Going forward, we’ll select new Alpha testers from players who are active in Beta testing and Heroes discussions. We’re looking for players who are passionate about AI Dungeon and like trying new features, who are able to be patient with a few bugs, can articulate the problems they are encountering and document the steps to reproduce issues, provide thoughtful feedback, and are respectful to others in the community.

Players we invite to the Pioneers group will now become a Trial Pioneer for about 3 months. At the end of the 3 months, we will either upgrade them to full Pioneer or rotate them out of the group. We are also merging the Heroes Early Preview opportunity into the Pioneers group, so this is another way players can become alpha testers and Pioneers.

We love getting player feedback; we look for it and review it every day. Positive feedback helps us know we’re on the right track. Critical feedback motivates us to grow and shows us where we can improve. Please continue to share your feedback with us on our Discord server. We appreciate all you do for AI Dungeon and the community!

Updated: October 24, 2023