This week, I focused on user testing and manual validation of the Beat Map Editor system. I conducted testing sessions with four friends, all of whom have programming and music backgrounds. Each tester independently used the editor and provided feedback based on their experience. Overall, the feedback was very positive—users found the UI intuitive, easy to navigate, and effective even without prior walkthroughs. They noted that note placement, waveform scrolling, and real-time playback behaved consistently and responsively. Some minor improvement suggestions, such as adding keyboard shortcuts or additional visual indicators, were collected for potential future refinements.
In parallel with user testing, I used the editor extensively myself to manually create and validate two new beatmaps. The first song I mapped was Bionic Games – Short Version, and the second was Champion by Cosmonkey. Both tracks are short electronic pieces with relatively complex rhythmic patterns, making them ideal candidates to stress-test the editor’s note placement, timing precision, and multi-lane support. During manual creation, I verified that waveform visualization remained accurate even in high-density sections and that all notes saved and reloaded correctly without timestamp drift or data corruption.
To prepare for the final demo, I also started working on a third beatmap for a classical music piece. This addition is intended to diversify the demo’s musical range and demonstrate the editor’s ability to handle different genres with distinct rhythmic structures. Manual beatmapping of a classical piece will help further validate the editor’s precision and flexibility under less beat-regular audio conditions.
Beyond content creation, I continued running informal internal tests to validate persistent data integrity, ensuring that beatmaps save and reload perfectly between sessions. I also monitored playback stability, waveform scrolling behavior, and editing UX consistency while stress-testing dense beat sequences. The editor remains stable and performant on Windows using SFML and no further platform migration issues were encountered. All tests and newly created beatmaps confirmed that the editor continues to meet project design metrics for responsiveness, usability, and performance.