Playtesting Board Games: 12 Lessons

By MARK WILSON

prototype digital board game
A digital prototype of a board game I've designed.

I’ve slowly become more serious about design in recent years. Here’s some of what I’ve learned.

Playtesting Experience:

  1. I have joined a local playtesting group that also has ties to local publishing groups and conventions, at which they’ll host playtesting or publishing events.
  2. I’ve run playtests both in-person and online at this point, at Conventions and meetups of designers and in a couple online circles.
  3. My playtesters are a rotating cast, though; I don’t have a “regular” playtesting group. My games have been playtested by well over 100 people, collectively.
  4. I belong to a handful of online communities dedicated to playtesting and publishing (on Discord and Facebook). While I’m mostly a lurker in these groups, it helps to give me insight into what others are going through.
  5. I’ve pitched my designs to publishers, both at Conventions and virtually. I’ve had discussions with a handful of publishers that haven’t yet materialized in a publishing contract, but have progressed near to that point.
  6. I’ve devoured about half a dozen books on game design and various educational Youtube series from existing designers. This doesn’t make me an expert, but does mean I’ve applied some rigor to understanding the craft and the business of design and publishing.
  7. Here’s my designer page so you can see what I have that’s currently live on Board Game Geek. It’s a small fraction of what I’m working on, but anything there has documentation to be able to play it yourself.

Now, onto the insights!

#1 – Be Willing to Admit Something’s Not Working (i.e. “Kill Your Darlings”)

I’ve had lots of failed first playtests. And 2nd playtests even after significant revisions. And games that I shelved indefinitely because the problems identified in playtesting were ones I couldn’t easily solve in ways that satisfied me.

In creative work – primarily in agency or freelance work – there’s a phrase I like: “The Work Isn’t Precious”

What that means is that we’re not married to the particular creative output and details of what we produce, but rather the effect it has on the client. We’ll change anything that’s necessary without complaint to get to the desired outcome. It’s not personal, in other words.

In this case, “the client” is other players (and to a certain extent, ourselves). If I am doggedly stubborn about a game, or aspects of a particular design, I’m hurting my ability to grow as a designer.

This mentality allows you to slough off criticism more easily. Why? No creative in a subjective field gets it right the first time, every time. In fact, this rarely happens.

#2 – Be Willing to Reject Feedback

The key here is rejecting feedback when it doesn’t align with the type of experience you want the game to deliver.

If I’m designing a traditional-style trick-taker and get a suggestion of adding individual player powers to the equation (this is a real suggestion I got!), that player is not looking for the type of experience my game is aiming to deliver.

Being willing to listen to feedback as a default position is good to pair with this. Once you’ve gotten enough feedback, it will become more clear which is going to be useful to you and which isn’t. You can’t please everyone.

#3 – Don’t Share Publicly Until It’s Ready

I only made this mistake once, but it was a lesson learned. I uploaded a game to the Board Game Geek database before it was ready, so to speak, with a rule set and print-and-play files for the game. I figured I’d work out the kinks through playtesting as I went along.

Except now people can rate and comment on your game while you’re still figuring out how to refine it.

That game underwent some significant changes, and people were linking to it at points where I was hesitant to tell people “Yes, go play it!” because I was behind the scenes working on a new rule set or something. A few comments/ratings also appeared that were based on older editions of the game.

“Ready” doesn’t mean 100% done. But it does mean it’s in a state where you’re happy with it, should it never change again.

#4 – Find the Right Crowd, and Multiple Crowds

I almost gave up on a couple games due to a lackluster first playtest, only to realize that it resonated far better in another playgroup.

This is even true within the same “type” of gamers. Two playtests of the same game with different members of the same meetup group, for instance, can be wildly different.

If a game falls flat with multiple groups, you have a problem. But if it falls flat in a single session but you think there’s still something there, you may be right and just need to try it with different players. You may still have to adjust aspects of your game, but can also see what’s working well with this approach.

From what I know about the playtesters and playtesting groups for some successful designers, I think even longtime designers sometimes suffer in this regard, and it can create blindspots in their design process.

Stated differently, if the same four people are playtesting your games, they might give useful feedback but will also have blindspots that wider playtesting will reveal.

#5 – Your Friends Aren’t Your Playtesters

I’ve playtested with friends, let’s be clear. And if you really get going as a designer, your friends who you game with are probably going to be excited to try your game. This is perfectly fine.

I also disagree that you won’t get honest feedback from friends. If you’re truly close with them, they’ll be unafraid of telling you their unfiltered thoughts. You can actually get good feedback at times.

But for creating a systemic pipeline for playtesting feedback, that’s not what your friends are for. I have several groups I game regularly with, and they’ve all at some point played my games. But their purpose in my life isn’t related to design efforts, but rather the social experience.

Playtesting can be social, but it’s also a different “hat” so to speak than merely playing games. Many playtests don’t even finish the session, particularly when you’re looking for initial feedback. You play a few rounds and gauge reactions and gather feedback, rather than playing the entire game. This is a very different context than social gaming.

You also risk resentment over turning a friend group into something that serves your creative projects, and turning your fun into work if you do this. Whereas dedicated playtester communities will have a more sustainable mindset going into a playtesting experience.

Share your games with friends and family! But don’t make them your playtesters with any regularity.

#6 – The Right Feedback Excites You

Feedback doesn’t always come in the form of rules suggestions, but rather what didn’t work about a design. Then it’s your job to figure out a solution. Sometimes I’ll muse in real time about possible solutions and gauge playtester reactions.

Other times, though, it really will come packaged as new rules suggestions.

Either way, when I hear the “right” feedback, the possibilities it entails are exciting. I can vividly recall when particular designs clicked into place for me after a particular bit of feedback, and I was champing at the bit to jump back into the rules document and make updates.

If you’re hedging on including a piece of feedback, you may be entertaining it simply to be charitable to the person who suggested it. The best feedback will resonate with you in ways that removes this ambiguity.

It also means you’ve found the right playtester, because they understand the experience you’re trying to create, so their feedback pushes it in the right direction. One online friend’s feedback has directly influenced a couple of my games in positive ways, for instance, and this is because he’s someone whose gaming sensibilities broadly match my own. So he’s hoping to see the game move in directions that match my design intent.

Another in a local designer group is good at this, because he asks himself what the game is attempting to be, and for whom, before giving feedback. His responses are invariably about where the design departs from his understanding of a game’s audience and overarching experiential intent.

#7 – You Don’t Need a Million Playtests

I’m sort of convinced that the expectation that you playtest dozens or hundreds of times is a result of how complicated many modern games have become. Or because hustle culture has infected game design to the extent that we’ve created industry-wide expectations that mirror the practices of large publishing companies and full-time designers with dedicated – often paid – playtesting groups.

For clarity, I 100% believe in the power of playtesting, including with multiple groups, but also scratch my head a bit at what seems like ridiculous expectations for playtesting.

Let’s also be clear, I’m talking about playtesting before a publisher decides to pick up your game. They’ll do their own playtesting of your design. It’s not all on you. Before that, though, if you adopt this enormous standard, you might playtest something 50-100+ times that you’ll only ever play in its finished form with a handful of friends. That’s a ton of work for marginal payoff, and this also sort of assumes you’re working on numerous games, not just one.

With some games, “does this work or not?” was evident for me after 1-2 playtests. And within 3-5, the major pain points were identified and solved with one or more adjustments (or I realized the game was too flawed to fix). After that, I was distinctly worried about over-refinement, so to speak, where I kept making changes simply for the sake of saying I was doing something.

Granted, a handful have gone through numerous iterations and double-digit playtests, and I’m getting well into double digits with each of them as I do my due diligence in with playtesting, even if I’m not changing much past the first handful of test. But those that needed double digit playtests to get to something good were invariably a bit more complicated, or needed full-scale overhauls after their initial iteration.

With a couple that I greatly enjoy and have now played 10+ times in their current, “final” state, the only suggestions I was starting to get were of the “more is more” type. But the game was delivering the type of experience I envisioned. So it was done.

The point, though, is that these were games with fairly simple rule sets (with either emergent or interpersonal depth), so there weren’t a bunch of edge cases that could be missed in playtesting.

I have designed games where the experience doesn’t match with various peoples’ preferences, but I’ve never presented a “final” version of something and had someone discover something broken. And so the suggestions at that point are all preference-based. And I get to this point usually within 5-10 playtests. Most of my games have received significantly more plays than that to confirm what I’m seeing in those earlier playtests across multiple play groups, but they haven’t been strictly necessary to adjust the experience.

Always always always playtest your games. But don’t be afraid to merely playtest until it feels ready, not until you’ve met some arbitrary quota of session counts. If someone tells you that you need 100+ playtests or a spreadsheet to track mechanical relationships (or something similar), they’re designing a very particular type of game that may need those things, but for some other types this would be massive overkill.

A Youtube channel I enjoy on game design (linked at the bottom) has used a similar phrase: “You don’t earn enough to playtest 100 times.” I’d also add “Your time is too valuable to playtest 100 times.”

So those t-shirts that you’ll see at any convention, that say “Eat. Sleep. Playtest. Repeat.” and cheekily have Sleep crossed out…they’re passionate about what they do, which is great. But they’re adopting a mentality I can’t endorse. And the many quotes you can source from big-name designers about playtesting ad nauseum…they’re usually from people without day jobs. Designing is their whole means of income, so they can afford to playtest that much.

Playtesting is your best source of feedback and improvement. It’s necessary and amazing. Rational limits on it are all I’m advocating.

Conversely, I’ve heard that you should be playing your game dozens of times simply to confirm that you remain passionate about it over a ton of sessions. Because if you aren’t still excited, why would you expect others to be? This seems more valid to me, but is less to do with mechanical adjustments and more about one’s excitement for the process.

#8 – Publishing Widely Isn’t the Only Valid Goal, But Too Few Understand This

“When’s the Kickstarter launch?”

“Have you brought it to any protospiel events?”

“There will be publishers at {Convention}. You should try to pitch your game.”

“This game will never be picked up by a publisher. It only holds four players. How do you plan to expand the player count to make it more marketable?”

Everyone just be quiet if you’ve found yourself saying these sorts of things. It’s well-meaning but ultimately quite annoying. I promise you, the designer already knows whatever you have to tell them in this regard, and has already fielded these questions dozens of times. If they aren’t pursuing some opportunity, there’s a reason for it.

Or, when they don’t know these things and are curious, they’ll be unafraid to ask.

For clarity, this is different from asking “what are your expectations for this game?” or “what kind of feedback are you looking for?” or something similar. I fully advocate asking these questions.

Prepping a game to be published and prepping it only to play with family & friends are different tasks, and may require different feedback. The problem comes with assuming a designer’s intent.

The issue isn’t relegated to playtesters and friends/family though. Other designers are clearly pushing directly for crowdfunding and publishing for their games at times, and there’s a general assumption that everyone is on the same trajectory.

This is fine. But – and having networked a fair amount in amateur publishing circles, I can say this with some confidence – it is NOT lucrative 90% of the time or more, particularly given the time and effort involved.

If you want to be published widely, cool! Best of luck! I mean that sincerely. But like, it’s overwhelmingly likely that I’m saving money – and certainly time and effort on tasks I’m unlikely to enjoy – by avoiding this aspiration for many of my games.

I do want to see some of my games published, for clarity. But with others, that is not and never will be the goal.

I’ve also done some sporadic RPG publishing, which you can read about here on this website.

I’d like to expand on both published board games and roleplaying supplements, but if that’s my only or primary goal, it would make my hobby a hollow experience.

Point being: there are a range of valid end goals for design, and supporting the designer’s intent is the best way to proceed as a supporter, friend, playtester or interested party.

#9 – Don’t Love Your Children (i.e. “Kill Your Darlings” Redux)

Cheeky title aside, this relates to the quote from above, “the work isn’t precious.”

No less an authority than Reiner Knizia in an interview once said (paraphrased) that you have to let go of your attachment to your games, because some of them will come together better than you imagined and others will flop hard or go nowhere. Knizia specifically called them children, too, because this is how strongly some designers feel toward their creations!

But this is where he has the perspective that comes with experience. The process is where your passion needs to be. If the passion is tied to a particular outcome, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.

#10 – You Don’t Need a Formalized Process, But You Need to Do the Work

I’ve seen checklists and feedback forms for playtesting, and a hyper-focus on covering every possible base of a design. This may work for some, but most of what I’ve seen work (and what I do) is more nebulous.

I don’t have a formalized process for playtesting. I put a game in front of people, often play it with them (but sometimes don’t), and am unafraid of negative feedback or games that bomb. It’s easy to overthink these things. I try not to.

Over time, I’ve found it useful to track how long teaching, setup and gameplay lasts, but my general notes simply reflect the comments I receive.

More important than specific pieces of information, though, is critical reflection on the playtests. This will look different for different people. But having any approach is better than not having one.

The other important thing is just doing the work. Make iterations. Re-playtest them. Sign up for shit at conventions. Tinker. Daydream about your designs. Solo playtest them to search for game-breaking strategies. Print stuff out, change it, and print more. Bring something to a playtest event even though it might not be anything good, and say “I don’t know if this is anything worthwhile; help me figure out if I have something worth pursuing?”

Do the work. Then do more of it. Then even more. And keep moving forward.

Some designers pump out a new game every year and it’s getting published. Or they finish 2-3 games per year to play with friends. Others, though, have their pet project they’ve been working on for 5+ years, and always a bunch of stuff “in the works” that isn’t ready to playtest. It might even be great, but they’re unlikely to ever finalize it. They don’t have the same discipline for the process.

And if they’re happy with their progress, that’s great. There’s no quota on “work done” that leads to fulfillment as a designer. But I like seeing tangible progress, and putting something in front of people that I’m proud of. This means having monthly and yearly goals, and weekly plans to progress toward them.

I like this work, for reference. It’s why I adore this side of the hobby. Sitting down to work on a rules doc, tinkering with graphic design or a new idea, it’s all awesome! And I don’t truly think you can “make it” (whatever “making it” means to you) without that love of the process.

#11 – “Do the Work” Redux and Ignoring the Noise

If you’re getting into this, find a couple trusted sources (I list a handful at the bottom of this blog) and devour everything they have to say.

Then ignore the rest and just get to work. Because there’s a LOT of material out there you could consume. Some of it just wants your time, money and attention. Some of it is actually well-meaning. But once you’ve gotten some introductory advice, most everything is worth ignoring.

Why? Best practices for a lot of designing, playtesting, prototyping, pitching and publishing are more-or-less known, and the advice you’ll get from one source is often going to mirror other sources.

Hell, the takeaways in this blog are similar to a lot of what you’ll read or watch elsewhere in the “game design advice” sphere.

Spend a handful of months soaking it all in, by all means! But then divorce yourself from needing to absorb every piece of sage advice and just get moving.

Successful designers, whatever their end goal, design and iterate frequently. That’s it. The industry-side stuff can come through reading a couple books, watching a couple Youtube series, or just trial & error. But the only commonality successful designers have is making regular progress.

I see so many designers stuck on logistical planning, or tweaking and brainstorming without playtesting, or going in circles on a single design. I’ve had conversations with people looking to self-publish enormous games…before they have a working prototype!

They’ve lost the plot, in other words. Making sure you don’t do the same is important.

#12 – Tying Enjoyment to the Process, Not the Outcome

I’m a lifelong creator in numerous fields, not just games. This is a truism across the board:

Find ways to tie your sense of fulfillment to the creative process, and avoid tying emotional stakes to specific outcomes.

This is both the only sustainable way to avoid burnout that I’ve seen, and the only sustainable way to avoid emotionally damaging spikes of regret or disappointment. It’s more fulfilling and frankly more likely to create success.

You can see the opposite in some designers, those to whom a wildly successful Kickstarter is the only end state they’d consider a success. These people rarely last long. Others have delusions of ease in their publishing aspirations, and the frustrations of reality often halt them before long.

I’d estimate that 80% or more of published designers are operating at a financial loss in their design careers. I don’t think this is hyperbole. I think it’s the stark reality that those outside the business don’t fully grok. Yes, some designers quit their day jobs and design full-time. These are the exceptions, though, among seas of thousands of creators.

This is great! Not if you are hoping to quit your day job and design games, of course, but for other reasons. It means the people designing games truly love it. Most understand these realities and happily toil away, losing money to become published as a result of years (or decades) of travel, software, promotional/marketing, and prototyping or production expenses, not to mention opportunity costs for the time spent designing.

Thus, if you don’t love the process, you’re destined to be frustrated.

Design and Playtesting Resources

Below I have websites, Youtube channels and books that I am a big fan of for design purposes. I think they offer a lot in terms of support, wisdom, resources and tips.

Enjoy!

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