Game Playtesting: the Heart of Game Design

Course Curriculum

Chapter 1: Introduction

Lecture 1: Instructor and Course Introduction (same as "Course Promo")

Lecture 2: The heart of game design

Lecture 3: What you'll discover in this Playtesting course, and how it works

Lecture 4: Voluntary, anonymous entry survey (10 questions)

Chapter 2: What is Playtesting?

Lecture 1: Why Playtest? Games are Active, not Passive – unlike many other Individual Arts

Lecture 2: 12 "Need to Knows" about game playtesting

Lecture 3: Bug testing versus "fun testing"

Lecture 4: The Process of Playtesting and Modification

Lecture 5: Playtesting "Broken" Games – is that why your group won't test your games?

Lecture 6: How much Solo Playtesting?

Lecture 7: Kinds of Playtesters

Lecture 8: Metrics, and differences between tabletop and video game playtesting

Lecture 9: Emergent behavior and Playtesting

Lecture 10: Qualitative versus Quantitative Testing

Lecture 11: What Playtesting is NOT!

Lecture 12: Playtesting is like practice, without doing it right, you won't excel

Lecture 13: Confusions: playtesting with family versus with target market

Lecture 14: The fruitless search for the "magic pill" solution

Lecture 15: Exercise: practice what you're going to do

Chapter 3: Arranging the Playtesting

Lecture 1: Nine ways to make playtesting more attractive to gamers

Lecture 2: Where to find playtesters

Lecture 3: Stages of Playtesting

Lecture 4: Stages of Playtesting: the state of the game, or the nature of the testers?

Lecture 5: Playtesting objectives can vary

Lecture 6: Conventions: Protospiels, UnPubs, and "publisher speed dating"

Lecture 7: Why is it so hard to persuade people to playtest prototypes?

Lecture 8: Blind testing

Lecture 9: Project: Arranging Playtesting

Chapter 4: How to Conduct Playtesting

Lecture 1: Playtesting Exercise

Lecture 2: What to Watch for in a Playtest Session – Part I

Lecture 3: What to watch for in playtesting – Part 2

Lecture 4: The "tweaking" segment of playtesting

Lecture 5: Should you play in your own playtests?

Lecture 6: Testing the rules as you play

Lecture 7: How often do I stop a playtest before the game ends?

Lecture 8: Using questionnaires in face-to-face playtesting

Lecture 9: Using the "Six Hats" method to evaluate playtesting

Lecture 10: Can there ever be a "bad" playtest?

Lecture 11: Brief examples of playtesting specific modifications

Lecture 12: Example: Handwritten (!) notes from a solo playtest of a strategic space wargame

Lecture 13: Example: Detailed notes from PT of a game that still needs significant changes

Lecture 14: Example: Notes from the initial playtest of a game (not handwritten this time!)

Lecture 15: Example: Notes (originally from Info Select) of first play of a space wargame

Lecture 16: How much do I try to "break" my games during testing?

Lecture 17: "Finding the fun" in a prototype? It should be built in

Chapter 5: How to use the Results of Playtesting – change, change, change, love it or fail

Lecture 1: The Progressive Stages of Playtesting

Lecture 2: Are you designing a game, or throwing a game together? Part 1

Lecture 3: Are you designing a game, or throwing a game together? Part 2

Lecture 4: What makes a game good? Part 1

Lecture 5: What makes a game good? Part 2

Lecture 6: The pernicious "Not Invented Here" syndrome

Lecture 7: What to do with the Feedback

Lecture 8: Continuous Improvement, not Discrete Versions

Lecture 9: Playtesting Results: Is it the Game, or the Players?

Lecture 10: A little change can go a long way

Lecture 11: Confusions of game design: Symmetric and Balanced are separate things, pt 1

Lecture 12: Confusions of game design: Symmetric and Balanced are separate things, pt 2

Lecture 13: Rulebook: drafts, drafts. and more drafts

Lecture 14: Good once, good thrice, good always

Lecture 15: Stages at which a game design might be abandoned

Lecture 16: Example: Notes from solo play of Epic Britannia to post in online playtest forum

Lecture 17: "My game is DONE!" But is it?

Chapter 6: Other Considerations when Playtesting

Lecture 1: What level of expertise have you designed and tested for? Part 1

Lecture 2: What level of expertise have you designed and tested for? Part 2

Lecture 3: What you can gain from playtesting other than the obvious

Lecture 4: If your Game Design is “My Baby”, you’ll need to “Grow Up” to be a Pro

Lecture 5: Unintended consequences from rule changes

Lecture 6: The 80-20 (Pareto) Principle

Lecture 7: What to record when playtesting multi-sided games

Lecture 8: What paper prototypes look like

Lecture 9: Playing Styles: Fluidity in Tabletop and Video Games, part 1

Lecture 10: Playing Styles: Fluidity in Tabletop and Video Games, part 2

Lecture 11: Playtest notes for a game still in development

Chapter 7: Conclusion

Lecture 1: What's Next?

Lecture 2: Example: My full game-by-game playtesting notes for a game "lying fallow"

Chapter 8: Section containing material that doesn't fit in other sections

Lecture 1: Other Designers as Playtesters

Lecture 2: Why I wrote my book "Game Design"

Lecture 3: What makes my book "Game Design" unique or unusual

Chapter 9: Final Section

Lecture 1: "Bonus" Lecture about Lew's courses and activities