Tabletop Game Prototyping, Playtesting, and Development
225In today’s video I discuss the process of prototyping, playtesting, and developing tabletop games.
Introduction
• This is the heart of game design
• goal is to make the game as fun, functional, intuitive, and balanced as possible
Early Prototyping and Playtesting
• rapid prototyping, minimum viable product, early expectations
• tools: Cutterpillar, color printer, lots of spare tokens
• sometimes playtest by myself
Local Playtesting
• look for moments of joy, frustration, or confusion
• play, don’t just observe
• allow edge cases but once you find them, steer away
• take notes then set them aside for a day
Blind/Unguided Playtesting
• writing the rulebook
• privacy, urgent questions, survey plus report, and compensation
• how to find playtesters and how to select them: https://stonemaiergames.com/kickstarter-lesson-236-select-the-best-testers/ (I look for what happened, why it happened, and how it made you feel, some level of intuition, avoiding wasted playtests, finishing on time, those who enjoy writing, willingness to provide constructive criticism)
• I send an initial note, then the full details
• what I ask in the survey: name, email, player count, length, winning/losing details, rating, bad, good, playtester names
• I wait until the wave is over before I look at any results, then I iterate, playtest, and do it again
• Improving the rules—every question matters
Development
• Playtesters raise questions, developers propose answers
• data analysis
Beyond
• limited digital testing only as a secondary option
• video playtesting
• economies
• campaign playtesting
• ruts and research
• how many waves? When do I know the game is ready?
Game Design Articles, Links, and Resources: https://stonemaiergames.com/kickstarter/how-to-design-a-tabletop-game/
10 Steps to Design a Tabletop Game: https://youtu.be/VgEt7PysQgc
12 Tenets of Design for Stonemaier Games: https://youtu.be/OaER5C7xzWk
Pitching to Publishers: https://youtu.be/kAR14UNIMHs
00:00 - Introduction
01:50 - Early Prototyping and Playtesting
07:10 - Local Playtesting
13:10 - Blind/Unguided Playtesting
24:50 - Development
28:08 - Beyond
Become a champion of this channel: https://stonemaier-games.myshopify.com/pages/stonemaier-champion
podcast link: https://stonemaiergames.com/about/podcast
Intro animation by Jeff Payne https://vimeo.com/jaaronpayne and video proofing by Cody Simonsen