To playtest or Not to playtest

It's sometimes difficult to successfully solicit playtesting for your games, no matter the environment. Here, however:
- most of the readers are designers themselves who have their own projects to discuss/work with, and this sucks up their free time
- of those who have legitimate spare time, lots of folks only have enough time to review rules, and not playtest
- print-and-play of someone else's game may be prohibitively expensive, take up too much time to figure out, or both
- some folks may know a designer or two, and I'd imagine that a game from someone they know will trump a game from someone they don't, so they play games from designers they know.

...So I would suggest that you don't become discouraged by a lack of responses right now. Try contributing to different discussions, be courteous and constructive with others' designs, and then slowly introduce your design to those forum members with whom things really seem to click.

Do you have a Friendly Local Game Store? Do you have local groups of designers? Do you have events at a local library? Do you have a "game night" at a local pub or other venue? Is there a local game design or game-playing Meetup where you are? All these things - and more - are possible venues to bring your game to potential playtesters.

Good luck. :)

And most serious games are not PNP games. I get the concept, I just don't think it's practical. PNP games are usually the less played and people you need to promote your game like Reviewers are not interested in taking the time to DIY board or card games.

Not very many people have the time to cut cards, place them in sleeves with other cardbacks, and then cut out shards to be used with the games... It's very time consuming and most PNPs are not worth the effort.

I was being asked to consider a PNP of "Tradewars - Homeworld" and there is no way I will be doing that. Sorry. I have spent about $500.00 on TGC prototypes for Reviewers and have sent out unfinished but professional game sets. I even went out of my way to buy the right dice sets. And I luckily found Del, who set me up with a ton of plastic game markers (Ice cubes - as they call them).

PNPs might be good because they don't cost anything in terms of physical material and shipping, etc. But on the other hand they require so much effort. With a printed prototype all you do is open the box and setup...

Instead I would invest time in things like http://www.tabloro.com where you make a digital version of your game. You will get 10x more takers if all they need to do is log onto such a platform... Granted it take time, more time and effort than a PNP - but you will probably get more people willing to try your game!

If you want a successful game, you need to get it in the hands of industry experts which will evaluate, explain and give feedback about your game. There are very few of these experts who will entertain PNP product. Less than five in a list of 100 or so...

Exactly. More effort than PNP but then you can virtually have anyone playtest the game from anywhere... This is very powerful. I guess with anything the first time takes more time, but then you have revisions and it probably gets easier if you have more experience with the platform...

I also think it's fairly useless to be asking someone, "so what do you think of my idea?" What are they going to say? It's usually one of three things:
- "Yeah, that idea sounds good. Go for it!"
- "Nah, I don't like that kind of game. I say skip it."
- "It sounds like a decent idea, but until I have a chance to play it, I really can't say for sure."

Does any of that help bring your game to a finished state? I think not. Ideas "are a dime a dozen." They all sound good (or at least reasonable and approachable) at first glance, but their worth is never truly considered until they're legitimately tested and critically examined.

I really wish people would stop asking for approval/permission to pursue a game idea, and instead they just did it. I hope you don't take this personally, because it's not meant as a criticism against you. It's something I've observed time and time again.

Until you have a workable prototype in some sort of condition to be functional for a playtester, asking for playtest sessions won't be helpful. So set aside time and energy to come up with a workable prototype - DON'T spend too much money on it at first because it will likely change - and then only after you've done that start looking around for willing guinea pigs and feedback.

I print'n'play certain types of games. If there are lots of cards I tend to avoid them. Games with just one board of moderate size and some components, possibly just a few cards, work very well, especially for solo play (or if you are lucky enough to know players that do not run away screaming when you show them your home-printed game). Tile-placement games with a limited number of tiles and maybe a few wooden cubes etc are fine as well because you just put self-adhesive sheets on cardboard and cut out, which is much faster and gets better than making cards, and also you do not need to have the exact right size card sleeves at home to do it

I have printed many games, especially free ones from bgg design contests . Printing a bunch of games from the bgg childrens game contest tonight so I can play them with my kids this weekend. But I have a few games I paid for as well. Most that I play are solitaire games though, but I know people I can actually play printed games with if I want to (and others I know there is not much point even suggesting it to).