Paid playtest

US$10 for 25 minutes

Honest criticism is the thing being paid for.

Dendrite Bloom is a calm, hands-only game of paper-folding puzzles for Meta Quest. You fold a sheet with your fingertips, then predict where punched holes land, where light passes through and where ink soaks, and every answer grows a glowing connection in a brain around you. It has reached the point where the useful question is no longer whether it works, but whether a stranger can work out what to do with it.

So: Quest players, paid US$10 each, to play the opening 20 minutes without being told how, then answer 5 minutes of questions about where it lost them.

Apply for a place

What you get and what is asked

Pay: US$10 by PayPal, sent within 48 hours of your submission arriving. Payment does not depend on liking the game, finding bugs, or posting a review.
Time: About 20 minutes playing plus a 5-minute questionnaire. Breaks and the download do not count.
Hardware: Meta Quest 2, Quest 3 or Quest 3S with hand tracking turned on. No controllers: the game is played with your hands only.
Access: A free key after selection, emailed to you, redeemed in the Meta Horizon app on the account you own the headset with. Yours to keep.
Feedback: A short questionnaire on this site, plus a screenshot of a Level 3 puzzle, with its large 8 × 8 sheet in view. A clip is welcome but optional. No webcam, no room footage.
Stuck?: Ask on our Discord and the developer will walk you through it. Asking costs you nothing and does not affect payment.
Eligibility: 13 or over, and new to Dendrite Bloom. Under 18 is welcome with a parent or guardian's agreement. The payment then goes to their PayPal account, since PayPal requires account holders to be 18. Either way, there must be a PayPal account the money can reach where you live.

What you would actually do

Start the game and play with your hands, without anyone explaining it. Working out what the game teaches badly is the whole point.
Fold, punch and check your way through to Level 3, where the sheet grows to 8 × 8. Getting stuck is a result worth having, not a failure.
Quit and come back once, so we learn whether your progress returns.
Answer the questionnaire, and send the screenshot.

You have a week from receiving access. If that stops being realistic, say so. An extension is a message, not a problem.

When you get paid

Payment depends on doing the agreed thing and sending the agreed evidence. It does not depend on whether the feedback is judged good enough, whether you liked the game, or whether you say anything nice in public. There is no minimum number of bugs, and no store review is expected or wanted.

IfThen

You play about 20 minutes, reach Level 3, send the screenshot, and answer every question from your own sessionPaid US$10, whether or not you liked the game.

You could not reach Level 3Not paid yet. Ask on our Discord and the developer will walk you through it, then carry on and submit.

You are not sure what to do, hand tracking misbehaves, or something seems brokenAsk on our Discord before your week runs out. A walk-through does not affect payment.

Something is missing from your submissionYou will be emailed exactly what, within three days, and can update your submission for a week.

A submission is copied, fabricated, or claimed twiceNot paid, with the specific reason given and a week to dispute it.

What happens to what you type here

Your email address, Meta Horizon username, country and answers are stored so the study can be run. They are never sold, never used to advertise to you, and never added to a mailing list. The only email you will get from us is about your own application: your key if you are selected, a note when your submission arrives, and anything missing from it.
The PayPal account the payment goes to is asked for only when you submit your session, and only from testers who were offered a place. It is stored with your application and deleted with it.
Unsuccessful applications are deleted within 30 days of being declined. Answers, links and contact details are deleted 90 days after final payment. Findings are kept only with names and addresses removed.
If you are under 18, we store that a parent or guardian agreed rather than who they are, and we may ask them to confirm by email before a place is offered. Nothing is collected from anyone under 13.
Emails to you are sent through Amazon Web Services’ email service, which handles your address only to deliver them. None of your details are sent to Meta by us; Meta learns of you only when you redeem the key, under Meta’s own terms.
This page uses no cookies and no analytics.
You can ask to see, correct or delete your application at any time, before or after the study, by sending the developer a direct message on our Discord. Quote the reference shown when you apply.

The rest of the site’s policy is on the privacy page. The game itself collects nothing and has no accounts, and that does not change because you took part.