Giving Good Playtesting Feedback
It’s an unfortunate fact that creators can never truly experience their own works. Sure, we can read our own writing, listen to our own songs, watch our own films, and even play our own games. But that experience will always be different, tainted by proximity, self-doubt, emotional resonance, etc.
To find out what it’s like to play their games, designers must turn to playtesters, and as a playtester, the best feedback you can give about a game is to relay your honest, personal experience of playing their game.
I’m sure Mr. Quackers and I had very different experiences reading this book than Steinbeck did.
Make It About Yourself
But isn’t great feedback about the game? Well, yes. Sort of.
I prefer to think of feedback as giving a report on how I felt throughout the game session. Where was I frustrated, where was I engaged, where did I feel empowered by decisions, and where did I feel bored. What were my highs and lows, and where was I having fun (or not).
It’s about moments and mechanics in the game that elicited certain responses in me. Yes, it’s about the game, but it’s mostly about how I experienced it.
Remember, designers are primarily trying to create experiences. By filtering your feedback through yourself, the designer can ascertain if their game is doing what they wanted it to do (regardless of if you enjoyed it or not).
My feedback on this sidewalk from Battle Mountain, NV: I was frustrated and felt like I was wasting my time following this winding path. Eventually I became so frustrated that I abandoned the sidewalk and started walking down the breakdown lane. Was that your intended experience?
This Is Good For You Too
The better you get at identifying how elements of a game are making you feel, the better you’ll be able to implement mechanics into your own designs to elicit the feelings and experiences that you want your players to have. In essence, you’ll be able to shortcut a lot of the design process and choose the right mechanics for your game (or at least be able to problem-solve these issues more efficiently).
I also think there’s something to be said for the value of introspection in all aspects of life. Identifying your feelings and why you’re having them can help you avoid unpleasant situations, make healthy choices, and focus on creating a fulfilling path through life.
Kind, Yet Critical
This style of feedback strikes a good balance between the necessity to be critical about games, while also being kind to the designer and respectful of their feelings. None of this feedback focuses on what was “wrong” with the game, just in how you experienced parts of it. Sometimes that experience will be critical: “I didn’t understand how ore connected with the rest of the game. It never felt like purchasing ore was a valuable option.” This tells the designer that there is some kind of problem with the ore economy of the game, and from there they can decide if they want to help incentivize the purchase of ore, eliminate it entirely, or some other solution. But remember, it’s not your job to fix the game for them!
Feedback of this style also puts into context that the intersection between players and games will always be subjective. It allows for critical feedback within the framework of that subjectivity, and is therefore not an attack on the objective value of the game, or on the value of the designer. To say that you “were not engaged” during a particular part of the game is not mean or unkind, it is simply how you felt in that moment.
What Should Designers Do With Your Feedback
Whatever they want. Full stop.
Seriously. Your role as the playtester is to give your honest experience, and their role as the designer is to do whatever they want with their game. It’s their creative work, not yours. If they disregard everything you said, that’s 100% their prerogative as the author. Sometimes people are going to make games you love, and sometimes they’re going to make games you don’t like. Look at the BGG top 100. I dislike lots of those games, but that doesn’t make them bad.
Remember that your feedback will be just a small blip in the development cycle of a game. Don’t get too hung up on it.
