Let’s get ready to playtest! Literally.

Steps I took before starting to playtest my board game

In my previous article — “Let the (board) games begin!” — I talked about the ideation process for my first board game.

Having an idea you believe in is great, but bringing it to life is the real challenge. To do so, you must playtest your game, which means playing your game with different groups of people, understand what works and what‘s broken, getting feedback, making changes and testing again (and again… and again…).

For you to make the best out of your playtests, you should come prepared.

Let’s review how I prepared for this process.

Create an alpha version

After I came up with the idea for my game, I created an “alpha” version to test it.

When you create an alpha version, it should be as simple as possible. Your game is going to change so much during its development. You are going to add, remove, and change everything from rules and components to the core game mechanics.

At this point, there is no need to invest in the art or graphic design of the game. You simply want to have a way to test it.

So for all of you “arts and crafts” lovers out there, this is as fun as it gets!

In my case, cards are a big part of my game. Since it was very likely that I will iterate and change the cards during game development, I opened Google Slides #ILoveGoogleDrive, created a few cards, printed them, and cut them. This way, printing new cards was easy.

Cube Monster alpha version — level up cards

I also bought ~120 wooden cubes and painted them with hand brushes #qualityTimeWithTheWife.

Cube Monster alpha version — cubes

I even hand made the most complex and beautiful board ever!

Cube Monster alpha version — most complex and beautiful board ever

And so, I had an alpha version of my game to playtest.

Do the research

At this point, I had never playtested a board game in my life. It was time to admit that I know nothing #JonSnow and do some research.

I Googled, read articles, watched videos, and listened to podcasts.

A few great resources I remember are:

Do your research. Learn. So that you will not end up like Jon.

Prepare documents

Maybe it’s the OCD, but I love it when things are documented.

Documents! Documents for EVERYTHING!

Before I started playtesting Cube Monster, I created a few docs for the purpose of documenting the process #ILoveGoogleDrive. I have been using these docs throughout the entire game development process.

Playtest observations sheet

I created a Google Sheet to document my observations during playtests.

This sheet contains an ID for each session, technical information like dates, players, duration of explaining the rules, game duration, what mode was used for leveling up (I tested different modes to see how they affect the game flow) and more.

It also contains observations — pros, cons, and conclusions. To know that I addressed all of the observations collected during each session, I have a column that I mark after making the relevant changes to the game.

Cube Monster — playtests observations sheet

Player feedback sheet

I created another sheet for documenting player feedback. I initially took the questions from the “How to Learn Board Game Design and Development” article previously mentioned, and as time went by, I added and removed questions to fit my needs.

For example, I added a “What do you think is the ratio between luck and strategy in the game”, where I aim for people to say that it was at least 70% strategy.

I like asking these questions immediately after a playtest is over #listenDontArgue.

Cube Monster — playtests feedback sheet

Open gameplay issues sheet

I also created a sheet for mapping open gameplay and mechanic issues. Every time an issue or a problem came to mind, I added it to this sheet. Not everything is urgent to solve immediately, and this sheet helped me focus on one item at a time.

Cube Monster — open gameplay issues sheet

Preparing and maintaining these docs may take some time, but I find it a worthy investment. In case you want to try the ones I mentioned above, I created a “Board game playtest documentation template” doc with several tabs for you to clone and use — check it out here.

Take pictures

I took pictures of the entire process of making this game. It is so cool to look back and see where the game started and how it evolved.

* Also, it makes writing these articles way easier.

Retrospect

Looking back, there are a few things I wish I would have done from the beginning of this process.

More data!

As time went by, I thought of more and more information I wish I had collected.

For example, I added more information to the observations sheet, like who won the game, how many rounds did the game last, how many times did the monster ask for an offering (a key mechanic in my game), how many Disaster cards players drew, what levels were players at after 15/30/45/60 minutes, etc.

Having this information from the beginning would have helped me now, at this later stage of the game development.

* If you find yourself using the “Board game playtest documentation template” I linked above, ask yourself what information that relates specifically to your game can be useful later on, and add it to your copy of the doc.

Players DB

Creating a “players database” of people who are interested in your game can come in handy in case you (and the players) want to keep in touch.

It is also important in case you want to, later on, crowdfund your project. As Jamey Stegmaier wrote in this blog post: “It’s not Kickstarter’s job to give you backers”.

In my case, I only recently started asking people for their contact info after playtests, doing so politely and giving them a clear out #don’tPushIt.

Wrap it up

Research, prepare, document, and retrospect. This is how I got ready for playtesting my board game, and how I made sure that I will do it better the next time.

Now, all that’s left is to playtest. In another article — “Turning lemons into play-monad” — I share examples of how some of the hardest playtests I ran turned out to be the most valuable ones.