Heya Folks!

We're half of the way into the jam and I hope everyone is having fun designing their game. As we work our way through the week, many of you are likely to begin playtesting if you haven't already. This week's thread offers advice on playtesting as you continue to refine your game idea. Without further ado, let's dive into that now!

Playtesting Advice

Now that many of you have a solid idea as to what your game will generally look like, it's time to make sure it's fun to play and works well as a game. Playtesting is a vital component of game design and is a step that can't be skipped. Even if you're testing with barebones cards, that's fine, art and all that comes during the polishing stage once we're confident in our design. And you guessed it, we become confident through testing and iteration.

Even though this jam asks participants to create a solo experience, ideally, you'll be testing with people other than yourself. The reason to do this is to collect better feedback. Since you designed your own game, you know it best and are likely to overlook aspects that may be in need of tweaking. If possible, our first tip is:  Ask others to play your game.

Remember, Tabletop Creator allows you to create files for Tabletop Simulator with ease as well as printing if you prefer physical components. Personally, I find digital testing to be cheaper and easier as I'm able to adjust content and iterate on ideas much faster as the testing process reveals places where my design my be weak.

If that's not possible, you can still test on your own. But if you do, here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Your game is too hard! - Like I just said, you know your game best as the designer, and as such, if you think your game is too easy... it's not. I promise that once other people get your game in their hands, it'll be harder than you anticipated. If you find it too easy, go a step further and make it just a little bit easier than that and you should be in a good spot.
• Look for the fun - Above all else, your game should be fun. If there are any aspects of your design that aren't contributing to the fun--get rid of that stuff! Strip away anything extra until you're left with a lean, but fun experience. From there, it'll be easier to add more to the game if that's needed as this process will reveal potential flaws in the design.
• It's actually fun to lose - I know, I know, this runs counter to what most people expect, but it's true. I've found that if a solo game can only be won about 40-49% of the time, people will be more willing to come back for just "one more game" as the games will usually be close. Even for more luck-based games. Don't be afraid to let your players fail, but pay attention to how often that's happening as you test. If you're only losing, or worse, only winning, you probably have a problem in the design.

That's it for this week's post. I've been enjoying all the updates in the Discord but don't be afraid to post here as well. What advice do you have when it comes to playtesting? Has it revealed anything interesting to you about game design so far? Let us know in the comments and I'll see you next week as we work to finish testing and move towards a polishing stage.

Until then, happy creating!