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Greetings Designers,

Let's talk about the role of Play testing in your design efforts. I think we can all agree that Play-Testing is important, but many of us are just lone Wolf designers doing this for fun. A few of us work for small companies and start-ups. No matter which category you are in, your pool of resources and time for Play Testing is limited.

Therefore, let's talk about:
1. Effective ways to gain feedback
2. Structuring Play Testing for solid, actionable, results
3. Time and Cost sensitive ways to Play-test

I am looking forward to reading about others experience in this area.

The most important resource are the non gamers the ones who will not play the game, if you manage to twist arms and make them read your rule set you will get a clear understanding on the clarity of your rule set.

The other two valuable resources are the power-players and rules layers, no matter how much you despise them as players during the play testing they will break your system leaving it a train wreak, exactly the thing you need during play testing.

Your most abundant resource is the friends and your gaming circle, this is usually your worse resource fro many reasons, but you have to rely on them.

So you must really work on filtering the information.

For me I am lucky to have a few friends who do not fear of trashing my writing, playing the game is more tricky, there a re a few clubs who organize events were a game designer can sue them for play testing, but I have yet to use them.

My other play testings involved my game group playing my designs, they enjoyed them, but made me realize that I need to filter the information too much.

Your game group usually has a higher grasp of rues and concepts than the target audience and has been shaped to have some preconceptions that probably you will also have.

Organizing play testing in a game shop (or boardgames cafe)with strangers as a shop event is something I have considered, but never did.

on your
1 Make them read the rules and play the game, its not getting the feedback, its filtering it.
2 I believe this is more or less on per game system basis, but I would avoid segmented playtesting.
3 I would avoid paying play testers, it makes their opinion even more favorable to you, you could as a small company have one or two play testers payed but this should be done after they have really proven themselves.

Testing games mechanics, balance and rules is important. You shouldn't simply just test with a group of friends or internally, but you should reach out and utilize people who aren't familiar with the game. When you work on a project and become intimate with it, there are things that seem like common or make sense to you because you have played it. For someone who has never seen or played it, they might not find it as intuitive. This is especially important when wanting to make sure instructions are clear and not overly complicated to new people.

There are multiple places from forums to other websites where you can find people willing to do game design and testing. The first place is something often overlooked which is Print and Play. There are a couple places you can publish rules for free, intended for people to print and play. Most of the time people who do that do give feedback. There is also places like BBG (boardgamegeek) and reddit that have sections for game designer and testers. You can often get volunteers there. Don't overlook the local game store as well. However remember that not all game testers are the same.

When you have someone play test, have a clear goal of what you are having them test. It shouldn't be "here is my game, let me know how it plays". You should have 5-10 basic questions you want answered to help direct what feedback you are looking for during a particular phase. You always want to give the person and/or group a direction for what you are testing in each aspect. Some tests may simply be about fun, was the game fun. Another aspect might be testing rules. You don't want to simply ask them, was the game fun? Was the game easy to understand? You will want to be more specific with your questions to ensure you don't get simple yes and no answers. You are going to want answers that have depth, what they enjoyed and found fun and what they didn't. Did they find an aspect tedious, what was it and why?

For example for one group in-house or at a game store I try to have my games pre-setup. I don't want players to worry about setup, reading the instructions or learning the game. I want them to test that the game functions and performs in the manner we expect. These tests could be short segment tests or full game sessions. You want to know what you want to test and maybe have a small questionnaire of a few questions already written down. This helps gives the tester a direction for what you are focusing on. For Sinister Reflections I wanted players to test game play. When they played the game, did the turn flow well, was it initiative, did they feel they should have been able to respond or do something they couldn't and why and of course did they have fun. Usually I try to have game already setup, then have players sit down, give a brief run down of mechanics. I stay available to answer questions but want them to see if it plays well without having to be prompted or reminded to do certain things. If it is a group that has played the game previously this becomes easier for larger tests, in smaller settings for first time players it may simply be about player movement or responding to NPC actions. Then rest the situation and test it again. I tend to rotate players through different playable characters so they aren't in control of the same person, each person may play a character differently than another even if a character is designed to play a certain way. Some players will play a ranged character aggressively, getting in closer than they need too while someone else would use it maximizing its skills.

Another group I want to look at how well are the rules created. I will preface it by letting them know that I'm having them test setups, based on them reading the instructions and setting it up. How quickly was it? Was it intuitive? Did they feel something should have been done differently? Other game tests may be testing a fresh group who have never seen the game from start to finish. Can they set it up following the directions, were their questions, how long did the game take? Then after playing awhile, another week I may have them retest it again after they are more familiar, did they remember things, was setup faster now.

A Mission/Vision statement (or Purpose/Position, or whatever) is useful for helping testers focus their comments & criticism.

As stated above, getting people that DON'T play the type of game you're designing to read your rules/test it is great. And getting analytical types to do their best to break your game (min/max etc.) is also invaluable.

I read a good piece of advice by Steve Jackson (the American one) who said that if you write an ACW game that allows charges uphill into massed dug-in artillery to be successful, you will never find out by testing the rules with ACW enthusiasts, as they would never try something so obviously stupid.

This has two implications; one is that you should ensure the rules are tested under all possible conditions the players may set up, and the second is that players bring preconceptions with them that may prevent the rules being fully tested.

I think the Playtest input is well-put, specifically the bit about having unfamiliar people try to play your game, not knowing how it's supposed to work.

Then gamebreakers and rules-lawyers.

Note that both of these lean toward brevity - the newbies have less to deal wtih, and the pros have less to muck with.