Re: Playtesting "Trojan War"

From: desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)

Date: Sun, 13 Aug 1995 00:00:00 +0000

Steve@spelbind.demon.co.uk writes:
> Now, though there are players who stick in normal games to the bitter
> end, it seems even harder to find those whole do it for FREE in a
> playtest. Why? Surely if you are getting the game for free, and have
> the chance to decide the course and design of a new game, it's worth
> sticking in there and finding out how everything turns out, isn't it?

Face it: in most cases the playtesters _don't_ "decide the course and
design" of a game.  The designers do.  That's the hardest thing about
being a playtester: you have to exhaustively test and analyze a game
system, but you _can't_ generally expect that changes you think proper
are going to be incorporated into the final design.  After all, it's not
your game.  Good playtesting requires all of the skills of game design
but without the ego.  (I don't consider myself a good playtester in
general although I have sometimes managed to do an adequate job.)

The other issue is that playtest schedules are frequently _very_ rushed.
Not only is playtesting a lot more work than just playing the game would
be, but you are expected to do it on a much tighter schedule in general.
Frankly if I've worked hard on the game for several turns and done what
I consider my responsibility as a playtester, and then I can't keep it
up indefinitely, I don't feel any guilt about that.  It may also be that
you get to a point where you determine that a game is not for you, or
that the changes that you would like to see in the game are not going to
happen.  At that point it may well be that there is little for anyone to
gain from your continued participation.  I certainly think that working
hard on a game (i.e., investing many hours a week) but not making it to
the end of the playtest, is worth a lot more than dashing off a quick
set of orders in a few minutes every turn, and doing that all the way to
the end.  I could write a computer program to do that and you wouldn't
need playtesters at all.

> LTWARS, HAND OF THE DEMON and our newby Apocalyptic game are all under
> playtest and the first two have suffered from useless testers. The
> third is on its very first turn - wonder how many of the people who
> asked to test it will not get around to sending in their first set of
> orders? I'll bet on 10% of them!

That sounds awfully low to me unless you have some very selective system
for choosing them.  If you just send out a random call for "playtesters"
I wouldn't expect more than a few percent of those who respond to do a
good job.  Of course if you can get people who have done a good job in
the past (for example), you might do much better.  I think it's the
designer's responsibility to start out with a large enough pool of
playtesters that that small fraction of good ones will be enough.

David desJardins

References

Playtesting "Trojan War"
Steve Pritchard <Steve@spelbind.demon.co.uk>
Sun, 13 Aug 1995 00:00:00 +0000

Referenced By

Playtesting "Trojan War"
Steve Pritchard <Steve@spelbind.demon.co.uk>
Sun, 13 Aug 1995 00:00:00 +0000