Testing a Board Game

It’s worth talking about who should test your game—since play testing is tied so closely to prototyping. In the very beginning, it should be you. Save others some grief and spend time thinking about interactions, how your game will work, and even walking through a mock game…by yourself. You can fix a lot of obvious problems this way.

Then, you’ll want to move on to testing with close friends or family who can provide meaningful input before you unleash a 10% completed game on an unsuspecting general public. Just realize that friends aren’t always willing to provide difficult (but definitely valuable) feedback. But, sometimes they can still help catch low lying problems.

“Average” players will often highlight problems where experienced gamers are able to “fill in the gaps.”
Make sure you’re testing people of the right demographic. If you’re making a family game, it’s best tested by (wait for it…) average kids and parents more than hardcore strategy board gamers who don’t have kids. “Average” players will often highlight problems where experienced gamers are able to fix, “fill in the gaps,” or smooth over real play problems or problems in your documentation—sometimes without you noticing.

Later, focus on testing with people you don’t know: a real cross section of experienced players and non-players trying your game. The more eyes, and the more perspectives, the better. Also, the more ages, backgrounds, and personality types, the better.

If you’re creative you can often get focus groups for free
So, where do you get access to testers? Many specialty game stores are happy to have inventors test games at their game nights. You can also try friends of friends, or game time at your local library or school. Of course, you’re just capturing your local demographic this way, but it’s still valuable. If you’re creative you can often get focus groups for free (or for just the cost of a pizza).

Fast Response

On a handful of occasions, we were able to see problems early in a play test. Rather than continue limping along during play with those issues, we ran into the studio, made a few quick changes, printed out a few replacement cards, and swapped them out with the problem ones. It took less than 15 minutes. If that’s not practical, don’t be afraid to write a fix on your protos with a permanent pen. You can do this in the middle of a game, buying you time until you can really fix the problem.

Too many cards? Take some out mid-game. To few? Add more. A single issue often masks important, but less visible ones. The only way to make real progress is to fix each problem and see if others are introduced, or if others go away. If you have problem cards or game board elements that you replaced, pull them out of play so they can’t get mixed back in and file them away for historical purposes. It’s fun to see where you came from…even the mistakes or problems. Capture Everything.

I took an archaeology class in college where the instructor was obsessed with capturing information. I’d expected that on-the-dig info should be really detailed, but he wanted to know who was in which seat in the van when driving to the dig, what you had for lunch, who you talked to. Everything. I wrote up a 100 page report on a single day trip and he slammed it for not being extensive enough. I think he was a little OCD. But he brings up a good point for game developing. When you’re having your prototypes tested, it’s good to capture lots of information. How many people played? When did they start and stop playing? How old are they, and what are their names? This can be handy when you’re trying to tune game length, target ages, etc. And of course, you should watch people’s expressions and gestures. Are they having fun, frustrated, waiting in anticipation, excited, bored?

Wrapping up

While early protos should have plenty of rough edges, at the end of your project, you’ll want to have a board game or card game mockup that looks as close to production quality as possible. Even simple things like colors, size of text, etc. can affect not only people’s perception of the game, but game play itself. Working on game play and then trying to “make it pretty” at the very end will introduce problems when they’re too late to fix. Plus, having a production-looking sample will give your factory something to reference when making your game. Most mistakes come from miscommunication or wrong assumptions, so a printed sample is far better than just a “softcopy” file. And, if your project is like most, you’ll be on a short schedule. You’ll likely need to get product photography done with a prototype instead of production product since the factory will produce your cards and/or game components at the same time as your box. You may need protos as trade show samples, to show press, or to do any number of marketing or sales activities. Next, we’ll next cover how to make your own prototype cards, and later cover mocking up board games.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 20th, 2009 at 1:42 pm and is filed under Game Board Building, Game Design, How To. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.