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 to 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.