How playtesting board games can make you a better person.
More useful than dozens of self-help books, more effective than a lifetime in church, less socially awkward than going into lotus position and chanting ‘ommm’:Playtesting! …for your soul.
Lesson one: People skills.Gather the team that is right for you. Know yourself and what you need. Can you handle the brutal cynicism of Julien and Petrus? Or should you gather the subtle shades of positivity when you playtest with Susan’s Mum of Qwirkle fame?Whoever you choose, now you need to motivate them to join you. Convince them to endure your broken game, prod them until constructive criticism oozes forth, encourage them with praise when their character gets stuck or dead, especially if they played like arse, then make them play again. And again. And in two weeks to do it all over again.You’re on a budget, so minimal expenditure on bribery pizza is a goal to reach for. If you get them to bring their own, you are a master.
Lesson two: You are a fool.“The first principal is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool”-Richard FeynmanWe fool ourselves. We all do. It’s natural. We believe that we can predict the behavior of others, and direct them.We are so, so wrong. This thought has caused the majority of the damage that ever occurred throughout history. Yet, as game designers, this is our craft.Before we present our lovingly crafted creation to our group, we have already predicted how they might respond to it – that the players will make THIS kind of choice, reveal THAT information, they will enjoy your game and they will laugh. Ho ho. Ha ha.Then our game hits the table. Your players sit, eat our Capricciosa, take their cards, roll he dice, then destroy our game in ways we had never thought of. They’ll misunderstand the rule about auctions, ignore the one about a trade round, suggest rules about turn order before trying out the one that is there, play themselves into Antarctica, commit robberies there was no rule for, somehow manage to die without comedic payoff, then complain that you’ve run out of vegetarian pizza.Ignore the ego hit, let it pass through you – your players have just uncovered gold! No time for a pity party, just take it and take notes! Enough encounters like this, letting it all on board and criticism will never affect you again. Confidence abounds when you transcend your ego, Padwan.Lesson Three: The Humility of the ScientistYour players played your game. It failed. Hypothesis: My game is perfect. Result: false.As a game scientist, remain objective to your own work and what you thought SHOULD happen. Be honest and remain humble to the evidence. Change something, test again, make it break again. Adjust, test, adjust, test.Even if your new hypothesis is that your game just doesn’t suit that player. My sleuthing game Goblins’ Lair didn’t work on Nathan. Turns out he hated Cluedo, Mastermind, and Scotland Yard as well. Any game that involved thinking. In which case, him hating my game, amongst these giants, is a good sign! Next step would not be to change my game, but to find out who my market is!Other times, of course, it is my broken, broken game, and lazy rules writing. Ahhhh. Well, that’s why we’re here. Test to see if that’s true.Give up your sentimental opinions, precious. They don’t matter, evidence does.Lesson Four: Be less smart.You suck at writing because you know too much.You are subject to the ‘Curse of Knowledge’ (Pinker 2014). You know your material so well that you assume others do as well. With this error, your writing is filled with jargon, omissions and short-cuts that seem clever, but really just baffle.Philosophy lecturers may get away with it, as do motor mechanics, because what are the listeners going to do without looking stupid? But no such luxury for game designers! Any vague instruction, any unexplained situation, any waffle that stops players understanding your instructions will splash visibly across their faces, and result in frustrated exchanges.Pleasantries are not an option as tensions rise and knuckles whiten.Watch them suffer and grab your pen! Take notes and attack your instruction manual with the brutality of Mrs Leonard on a rampage in grammar class. Slash, circle and cross anything that caused confusion. There will likely be not much left unmarked and you will have to rewrite the lot. A good exercise! A great exercise! Until now you thought you could write – now you know you can’t!And in knowing that, by degrees, maybe now you can.Hone your communication skills by hurting your victims’ heads less with each rewrite. Master this skill, and all your future communication will be more understandable, you’ll get better jobs, and people will like you more.Truly! Prove me wrong!Lesson five: Be unreasonable. Playtest through uncertainty and doubt.Be unreasonable about the time you will need to be ready for the next session. Halve it. Then halve it again. You will feel anxious and fearful of social embarrassment, sure! But you’ll be too busy on the task, too focused, to let it affect you. Just get the job done and don’t waste time blocking out the fear.You will produce better work in four days than four weeks, be able to manage fear, anxiety, embarrassment, and thus get over perfectionism, which paralyses creativity.As a bonus, of course, your game will get made four times faster! Huzzah!Apply this to the rest of your life – talk to that attractive person before you have a plan of where it will lead, leap onto that job before you’re qualified, and tackle that project before you know what you’re doing.So gather your group every week, my friends, playtest, and live life better.Thanks to Gatekeeper games and the Games Laboratory for playtesting locations in Melbourne