Game Playtesting- the Heart of Game Design

Game Playtesting: the Heart of Game Design, available at $24.99, has an average rating of 4.33, with 79 lectures, 5 quizzes, based on 9 reviews, and has 100 subscribers.

You will learn about Understand that there's a lot more to playtesting than just playing the prototype Recognize that playtesting is not only about fixing problems, it's about ensuring your target market enjoys the game Know what you can do to more efficiently arrange playtesting Understand what you can do to conduct playtesting more effectively Understand what you can do when using the results of playtesting And many other considerations that come into playtesting This course is ideal for individuals who are Game designers, especially those who are inexperienced or just starting out It is particularly useful for Game designers, especially those who are inexperienced or just starting out.

Enroll now: Game Playtesting: the Heart of Game Design

Summary

Title: Game Playtesting: the Heart of Game Design

Price: $24.99

Average Rating: 4.33

Number of Lectures: 79

Number of Quizzes: 5

Number of Published Lectures: 79

Number of Published Quizzes: 5

Number of Curriculum Items: 84

Number of Published Curriculum Objects: 84

Original Price: $24.99

Quality Status: approved

Status: Live

What You Will Learn

Understand that there's a lot more to playtesting than just playing the prototype

Recognize that playtesting is not only about fixing problems, it's about ensuring your target market enjoys the game

Know what you can do to more efficiently arrange playtesting

Understand what you can do to conduct playtesting more effectively

Understand what you can do when using the results of playtesting

And many other considerations that come into playtesting

Who Should Attend

Game designers, especially those who are inexperienced or just starting out

Target Audiences

Game designers, especially those who are inexperienced or just starting out

This is an in-depth treatment of what’s important, and how to effectively conduct and benefit from, game playtesting. Translating the 6.5 hours of videos to words, it’s the size of a small novel (more than 50,000 words). To my knowledge, there is nothing approaching this size on this subject in existence.

Playtesting is the heart (though not the brains) of game design. If you want to be a good game designer, not just a hack, you have to understand that heart just as you have to understand the brains, as covered in my other courses.

The major sections cover:

What is Playtesting?

Arranging the Playtesting

How to Conduct Playtesting

How to use the results of Playtesting

Other Considerations when Playtesting

There is nothing here about game programming, art, sound, etc. It is all about 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

Instructors

Lewis Pulsipher
Commercially Published Game Designer, College Teacher

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4 stars: 4 votes

5 stars: 4 votes

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