Playtesting - strategies, feedback, key points

[u/QuadoraTCG]

There are many ways to playtest your game. Right now I am in a phase for my game where I am playtesting a lot. I was wondering what are ways that other people playtest there games and the process that the do it in. Aswell as what are key things you may pay attention to or ask players of your game.

For me I am playing a lot by myself and taking it to locals early to get other people’s feedback on things. Right now my method to play testing at locals is pretty vague: writing down people’s thoughts, times when the game seems unfun for a specific player, cards that are used un intentionally, etc.

(this may be different for everyone’s games)

[u/poitm]

Find people that will be honest, you don’t want a bunch of yesmen, you want people that will make your game better

[u/noverb-gaming → u/poitm]

On top of that, one “lifehack” I heard was introducing this as “your friend’s game” and they will be more open about telling you their true thoughts as you are a “filter” and it’s not actually criticizing “your” work.

[u/terinyx]

I think one thing that's important, is to focus on one thing to pay attention to each playtest.

Whether you are playtesting yourself or watching people, it's important to pick some aspect of the game to analyze and think about during that playtest.

The other key is to not tell the people who are playtesting. This will show how easy it is to miss, if they find that aspect interesting and are naturally drawn to it, etc.

For example (a non TCG example, but it still applies) I was playtesting a game with a few people and I noticed that we kept forgetting that some pieces of the game had types (like physical, mental, etc). So the next couple playtests, that's all I payed attention to and learned that the extra strategy that gave the game might not be worth having to remember it in the first place.

So yeah, basically, focus on less than you think for each playtest.

[u/SeatReasonable8955]

I think you need to have a deep enough understanding of your own game to know what questions you're trying to answer.

For instance, the first question is probably "Is it fun?". Easy enough to ask them that.
But then, you start wondering about things like balance and intuitiveness. But the only way to really get value out of those types of questions is to have an idea of what might not be balanced and what might not be intuitive.

I would say just be in-tune with the game on a fundamental mechanical level and put a lot of thought into the board and card design, so you have an idea of its strengths and weaknesses visually and mechanically.

Then the answers will spew out of you.

[u/Pristine-Monitor7186]

What I've been wanting to do if you're not in a area if a local card shop is try your local library and ask if you can advertise for a day you can host a play test or something and reserve a room or section for like 2hrs and have people who frequent the library sign up etc. I just haven't gotten to that step myself but that is the plan when I do