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Playtesting and Refinement, Part Four

The Abbey Playtest Group 7/10/2012

Tonight was game night, and we did manage to get in a four-player playtest of The Abbey.

It was a semi-blind test, meaning that one of the four players grabbed the rulebook and tried to explain the game from it, while I looked on and tried to keep my mouth shut. Three of the four are part of my core playtest group and the fourth has done a playtest with me before, so there was a good vibe. Everyone knew that I don't take negative feedback personally and that the game was up for evaluation, not praise.

Playtesting and Refinement, Part Three

The Abbey gameboard

THE SCENE: Cargo Noir on the table to the left of me, Settlers of Catan on the right (Miah: "We're coming to play with you", New Player: "Why?" Miah: "Because you're doing it wrong."). In the back, my son is hiding in the trees as the Germans advance...

The third (and last) game that got playtested last game night was The Abbey. The Abbey has been in development for a long time, but I'm still not quite ready to let it into the world. Without either game about to end, we decided we'd try out another playtest game, rather than break anything else out.

Playtesting and Refinement, Part Two

The second game that got playtested last game night was Sint Maarten, which has the dubious honor of never having had a complete play of the game (other than the one time when the ten-year-old purposefully threw the game, just to get out of the playtest).

After the great success of Disaster!, Mark and Gerald were willing to playtest another of my games. The ten-year-old solemnly informed us that he would not join us, since the store owner has invited him to play a demo of Flames of War.

Playtesting and Refinement, Part One

DM-Board1.JPG

Last week's game night was very productive for me, in that I got three of my games playtested and each of them need to be refined in different ways. Here's a breakdown:

Disaster! (Working title, also called Disaster Management or DM)

Making Choices

Reposted from my blog at mrwgames.com:

“The game plays you” is a complaint that seems to come up fairly often and one that I think that comes down to meaningful choices in the game. A game with few meaningful choices will often feel like it’s in charge and there’s no real choice for you to make. Lack of meaningful choices is usually due to either false distinctions or strictly dominant strategies.

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by Dr. Radut