I just got my Wii flown in, and boy are my arms tired!
No seriously, I’m sore. It’s probably due to going a bit nuts with Wii Sports Baseball, and having done a lot of lifting yesterday, but my right arm really does hurt. Still, so far, a lot of fun with the games.
Apparently I’m not the only eurogamer who is in to the Wii as well, judging from two articles on Boardgamenews.
Speaking of which, two departures in the “game reporting web.” Rick Thornquist stepped down from his duties on Boardgamenews, and Dan Sivils stepped down from Gamingreport (which is now owned by Scrye.) Both of them did excellent jobs in the field of internet game reporting, way better than I could. Here’s hoping whatever their next endeavors are finds them well. (Whatever they do, it’ll probably pay a lot better!)
This week, I mainly did the whole manager thing instead of the designer thing. It’s sort of a weird experience, but it’s a heck of a lot easier than designing! No rest on that front though as I’ve been helping out with playtests. One particular protracted argument reminded me of some of my principles of playtesting.
First, playtest with people who are willing to say that your game sucks and give you good feedback. For this particular playtest, that was not a problem. But too often people play their game with their friends, who will like nearly anything you make. So be careful.
Second, make sure your playtesters know what stage you consider the game to be in. There was some disagreement about some of the color used in the game, and the playtesters thought the wording and art on the cards implied that it was a finished game. Having a simple conversation ahead of time fixes that problem smoothly.
Third, try not to jump the gun on creating layout, graphics, and other color. You can never be sure when you might have to add an extra piece to the cards you made, so unless you don’t mind revising cards completely, try to stick to more barebones prototypes until the game solidifies. This can pose a problem to some people since they need pictures and graphics to really get into the game. It’s a tough line, but there’s usually a level of prototype at which it is functional but not time consuming to create.
Finally, do a blind rules test once you have your final rules written. This should happen after the design is completely finished 100% (or as finished as it’s ever going to be.) Give the game and the rules to a group of people you trust and have never played the game. Observe and take notes, but try not to step in and teach until you’re sure they’re going to play it wrong (and make sure you take note of how they came to that conclusion.) This is an extremely important step that many companies ignore.
Hope you had a happy thanksgiving and black friday, and enjoy this holiday weekend.
Having the game “blind” or “naked” is absolutely crucial. Especially during the days of the CCG glut in the 90s, there were so many games with simple rules that with painfully poor explanations. Game Design is like other written mediums, you need good editors to give their input without being overly biased by the creator.
First, I agree with everything TheMainEvent said.
Second, another step that you might want to take in the playtesting process is to do a blind rules test as described above, and then have that same group of people play the game a second time, and see how they adapt their play. The reason for this being that players who play a game they have never played before often play the game differently than if they had previously played it. If you want to get an idea of how non-newbie players will play your game then you’ll have to test it with a group that has already played once or twice.