Playtesting Best Practices

Playtesting Best Practices: Real World and Online covers the complete journey of playtesting – the iterative journey to shape and refine tabletop games from raw ideas to balanced and fun games. This step-by-step guide embraces the process and celebrates the purpose of every step, from early self-playtesting to late-stage unguided playtesting, and offers the specific questions and practices the author has refined to perfect his own games.

This book is split up into four main sections, each with a distinct focus:



Getting ready to playtest: Establishing goalposts, brainstorming, self-playtesting, getting organized, how to design a prototype, and writing rules. The focus here is starting good habits and establishing best practices, whether this is your first game or your hundredth.

Playtesting in the real world: How to find playtesters, how to teach your game, what to do during the playtest, how to take notes and collect feedback, and being a great playtester yourself.

Playtesting online: How to adapt to digital platforms, the best practices for playtesting online, how to use these opportunities well, and cautions about playtesting online.

What to do next: How to iterate, additional ways to playtest your game, knowing when you’re done with playtesting, and choosing how to get your game out there.