In the game, a documentary podcast. Today is
Monday, July 20 second, and you're listening in
episode 634.
As always, I am your host, Jason. Here
today joined by 2 lovely people. 1, just
won't go away. That's Joe Ke. Welcome back
all of a sudden after 1 episode away.
You're back,
back again, Joe is back. I'm back. Tell
a game designer.
You can't get rid of me. I'm Joe.
It's good to have you here.
And then also backed by popular request of
I think just me. Yeah. I was gonna
say, Yeah. And me. I requested Robbie wants.
Nice. You you did. You did. Robbie Berg
is back
And it's great to have you here. Great.
Yeah. Yeah. So we're all we're all here.
Just hanging out, like a big funky bunch.
So 1 thing we're missing is,
some mark Mark. Yeah.
Wow,
already.
I mean, Time goes quick.
Well, y'all. It's good to have you all
here.
Yeah. So, what's ever been been up to?
Joe, you were just here, but what have
you've been doing in the meantime the last
2 weeks?
Well, since the last episode, my first game
got signed,
Hey.
I
I delivered a prototype so they're bringing it
to Gen con. I think just for internal
testing. But
and
lots of
solo testing of of different games and a
little bit of work on the coloring book
game that I that I pitched last time.
Awesome. Awesome.
Robbie, what about you?
I think that since last time I was
on, I went through incredible life changing pain,
but
that has
mostly resolved, and I'm glad to be able
to walk again.
And I won't delve in too much to
that adventure, but I'm glad I got that
experience to be able to comm with people
who are in that situation. And I feel
really bad for them. And in if any
of you, is that you, then I feel
bad for you and I'm sorry.
Game wise
been playing a lot of games with friends.
They continue to
Wow, may come visit play games. They they
made me pull off of pull out
gloom haven jaws of the line out of
the plastic and we played that for, like,
20 hours and
much to the cha to my family who
was avoiding the whole time, but it was
mostly at night while they were asleep.
And then, you know what I just... I
mean, just you know, we're... We'll see though
what the topic is in the in... In
just another second, but kind of a... As
said prelude. I was playing solo game,
blue haven buttons and bugs. I'm having a
lot of fun with that. But then I
was solo multi handed just now on the
table over here.
This game, it's it's it's called tier
tuna knowledge. It's by this guy. I don't
know. It's okay. I heard it's awful. It's
it's okay. No. It's actually quite beautiful. And
now that I've learned it, I think it's
quite delightful, and I can't wait to play
to people, but I'm playing it by myself.
I played the solo version I really did
enjoy that. That was really cool. And then
just to to preview the topic we're about
to talk about I play. I'm playing a
3 player game
by myself. So nice. Nice. That would mean.
Do you do that to, like, help with
your teach?
Like,
sure. New game? Okay. I... I sometimes we'll
do that, Like,
I'm gonna have have 3 people over, and
I'll play, like, the first,
however, many rounds
of of a game that I'm I'm learning
from the rule book or something.
Just to make sure I understand the flow
of it.
And then I can teach it a little
bit better. For sure. And so... Okay. That
is the topic. That it's What are we
calling it? It's a, like, multi handed testing
your game, solo. Not your solo game, but
you're you're you're game with multiple players. Right.
Right.
I
I don't know. Just to kinda just jump
off. Like, when I was getting back into
the hobby because I was into it when
I was 5 and 10 and in and
and 14 and but then, like, that was
30 years ago, and I got back into
it, like, 10 years ago, 8 years ago.
I don't know. But I got really excited
and
1 of the ones like, you've heard my
and I talking about,
Z and this big game big box, and
I dropped it on the table and sat
there and played a 3 handed game by
myself and built up the universe and know,
taking everybody's turned by myself and at the
end, like, there was this big moment at
the end where I had to roll 3
die and whoever this player would have been
what I had this incredible finish to the
game. It really exciting. But so, like, what
what I find interesting is that
as far as testing games, Solo,
what I'm surprised to find is that a
lot people
say to me that, you know, they they
they can't do it, or they don't wanna
do it.
And I was like, Well, you know how
interesting is this topic, but then sure enough
on Monday,
I got an email from 1 of the
newsletters I follow from 1 of the game
designers that have their own class and such.
And and they're like, how to test your
game with no play testers and and it
was... You can do it yourself. I'm like,
wow, wow, okay. So this is something that
people are interested in.
But I I just found a fascinating name
that some people like, like, I've put videos
of me playing it by myself and someone
commented, like, this is incredible. And I'm like,
is it? Okay. So anyway, I... The topic
is interested to me.
But, yeah, what what what
Joe you were saying that you have some
stories about
either being forced to play solo.
Because, maybe you're like me where, like, I'm
out in the Boo and I don't
get to a lot of play tests,
because there's not a lot around me. I
have to drive, like, an hour and a
half get to 1 and stuff like that.
Yeah. I don't have to drive that far,
but,
scheduling things can be tough. I have
a
21
month baby.
So,
you know, bad bedtime routine is a whole
thing that takes up
3 hours of the night. And
so it's it's a whole thing to either
have people come over or
or go to a play testing event. There
are some that are near me, but they're
scheduled during busy times like Saturday or Sunday.
So we always have family over or something
like that.
But
the 1 thing about Solo testing is that
it is very quiet.
You know, there's there's nobody coming through the
front door,
making noise and stuff like that. So,
our baby
really bad sleeper.
Really bad sleeper. We'll wake up. Oh, yeah.
Any sounds.
So
it was that was a little bit of
a of a difficult
situation was, like, getting in
play tests of things. But this is also
a thing I've done with with other with
other games. You know, I brought it up,
usually just if I'm like, learning a game.
I do, like,
Solo testing as multiple players, well, not testing
in that place, in that case playing.
But I did it a lot with,
commander, the the magic the gathering,
the variant or format. It's the more popular
1 now, I think. But
So I have these 4
very distinct decks,
and I can play them against each other.
Well, I mean, I have, like, 10 of
them. And so I pick 4 and
play them against each other.
And with that, you're doing similar things as
you're doing to game design because when you're
building your commander deck, you're you're setting up
an experience that the other people are gonna
have. So sometimes it's a 1 hour to
maybe sometimes up to, like, 2 and a
half hour
experience, 1 game of commander,
and you want the other people playing with
you to have a good time. You want
them to have, like,
a fairly
even match. I find that that ends up
being the most fun.
So that was 1 way to find out,
like, well, every time that this deck gets
in this situation
it just loses, or it blows up and
it and it wins and it surprises everybody.
So you start measuring them in
like,
this is a 6 turn wind deck. This
is a 14 turn win deck.
So that you can take those out at
the right time. To that ruin that social
experience.
That's interesting. I mean, like, because you hear
about, you, when people are pitching a game,
they'll set up, they'll preload the deck... So
they come... You're kinda doing a similar thing
there. Yeah. Yeah Yeah. Yep.
So... But, yeah, Then this was a huge
thing that just carried over naturally for me
in in game design
was doing solo testing
of my games. So these are not play
throughs. They are still tests where I'm trying
to answer a question.
Right? Though. So every time I play test
a game, I'm usually trying to answer a
question. It might be a very well defined
question, it might be a somewhat vague question.
And it might be, does this work at
all?
So I wrote down a few of the
top times for
testing
a game solo.
This big 1 that I just wrote is
sick.
When you are sick,
is a good time to do solo testing
if you're feeling up to it because you
don't want other people to come over.
When you're contagious. Yeah. Consider all places. Yeah.
So that's that's a good option.
But, of course, there's also online testing
for when you're sick.
So the the other options that I that
I wrote down and these aren't the only
times you can do it or anything like
that. But
I think very early in a design. I'll
usually do first several games solo to make
sure that things work so that
what I'm putting on the table in front
of testers for the first time is something
they can actually play. Yeah. Because I only
get so many opportunities to to test. Like,
if if you have a a weekly or
a 2 times a week meetup up that
you do, you might not
need that
but I'm may getting my games in front
of people once a month or something.
So
Hold on. And then I've I've also got
after a major change,
as we try to iron out. So that's
kind of the same reasoning.
And then
late stage,
maybe,
figuring out cap strategy x. So... Yes. Yes.
Late stage capitalism
that's the main time that I do my
testing.
That's the age I live in.
So working out awkward things like, turn order
and other sequencing
that that seems natural on paper. Mh. But
then once you go and you actually do
it,
this can be a helpful thing. Like, oh,
I was frustrated every time I drew a
card at this point.
Because now I have to consider more information
than I thought I needed to. Yeah. I
mean,
look at as a as as a form
of testing. It's not ideal, obviously, for 1
the feedback is crap. So the other point
I was gonna make is just like operationally
getting through the game how the numbers work
out, making sure
you have all the pieces, like, get to
the end.
I guess, anecdotally, like,
I was
on the first test of a of David
Mo. Tears of joy, and we could tell
it was an awesome game, and we got
to the end, and and there was not
enough pieces, or there was way too many.
I forget, David, But
could tell the game was awesome and gonna
be great. But, like, Dave like, I did
the math totally wrong. Maybe a little quick
self test beforehand might have played through a
whole game multi handed and and the number
you you see the numbers work out or
something, But I'm not about to tell David
how to design a game at all.
Now,
yeah. Beyond that.
When I'm in, like... When I'm doing a
game,
I'm testing myself,
I'm looking at
are there choices here? You know? Like, before
I put this in front of someone when
play comes to this person, what are their
choices?
Do they have 1 choice? Do they have
no choices? Or do they have 2 or
3 that are interesting?
And and as I go around and around,
each time it comes to that each player?
Like, do they have choices that are interesting?
Would this be interesting?
Or
do they have too many? Because that's also,
you know what I mean? Same lines As,
like, are, are they gonna get Ap because
they have too many choices. Right? Mh. That's
something to remember when you're looking at that.
Right. And so that's something you see just
by playing it by yourself.
I'm curious,
I
speaking of anecdotes
But, you know, you hear these stories...
I'm sure everyone's done. I'm sure happens a
lot. I... I'm just a hobby designer. I've
got 1 design, well, maybe 2.
But
the these folks have generate tons and tons
of designs and throw them at the table,
and you'll bring a design to the table
on a completely completely flops.
Jason You tell a story about 1 of
your early ones it's the cyber samurai or
something. Oh, 6 gun S. Yeah. 6 guns.
6 sugar. Now that 1, did you did
you do any solo playing of it? Or
did you just set and go. Be honest,
well, and I have to complete this, but
it was shit so S because it was
really bad.
So
so here's what happened. III have this inspiration
for a game that there was, like, a
a Western town, you had
these, like S or or Samurai
or something like that, and you had these
cowboys
trying to take over the town. And then
you also had, like,
a third faction.
I don't remember who that was. Maybe it
this is like the towns spoke who, like,
were, like,
W Right. Would be the guns. Right?
Well, no. That was the cowboys. That was
the 6 guns. The cowboys, and then the
s guns, and then you had, like, the
no guns, I guess.
But they they were just like, hey,
you know,
get out of our town. But anyways,
you were assigned at the beginning, I think
randomly who you were part of,
long story short. I was very inspired. I
made the heck out of this game, like,
nice first prototype products Gen con played it
with 4 or 5 players.
I think it was 4.
And
I've was so... Like, this is gonna just
crush it.
And every part of the play test was
bad.
We quit early few rounds in,
the people who were the no guns were,
like,
I didn't really understand what my goal was
in this game at all. Like, I just
was here
and I didn't know what to do.
And,
yeah. And it was bad, and it was
embarrassing because it was, like, a bunch cool
people agree to play and they all hated
it.
Like, real hardcore.
But it was a big lesson. Right? And,
like, you've gotta figure out
you know,
what you're doing before you throw that in
front of people, But here's the thing. I
am awful at So play testing. I've tried
it. My brain does not work that way.
So I still... I... What was that? I
was gonna say, said, what what... I... And
I guess, for who else was saying that,
maybe Jonathan,
S. He's the 1 who maybe even requested
this topic. Mh. He was. And then was
like, I don't wanna talk to you jerks
about it.
But, okay. So what's... What do you struggle
with? So I
I don't know it's the whole process. Like,
when I try to sit down with a
game
and solo test it,
it just doesn't click for me. And and
here's
here's, I think why for me.
I like games where players
discover things as they go. Not like, oh,
we're, you know, I mean, sure they can
discover new things But, like, I like when
the... When they discover the strategy when they,
you know, get to feel clever about the
tricks and stuff they get to do in
the game, like, in the actions they can
take.
And
I can't feel that way because I designed
that part portion of it, and I can't
make my brain not
not do that part.
So
so it ends up just not feeling right
to me,
or it ends up feeling
it ends up feeling like,
oh, this was okay, and it's still not.
Right? So I'm like, oh, the players will
get this when they won't.
Right.
And so it's a huge part of what
you can't right on and. So I I
have a process that I use, and I
can get into that. Or or I can
give to that later when we're kind of,
like, you know, it it doesn't matter to
me. I I can talk about an hour
where I can talk about it later,
But it was just not solo testing. Yeah.
So I was just gonna say, I mean,
obviously, it wouldn't work.
For a lot of games, like, if they're
heavily social or specifically just... You know, or
even, like party. But I guess, you know,
if there's cards and shit involved that you
could at least, like,
I don't know what this person's gonna do,
but then then you have to get into,
like, simulating their choices or what they would
choose Right. Right. Like here's
here's what I will do that's close to
solo testing that is physical. Right? I will
set up the game and see how that
looks.
I'll see how it feels sitting at the
table in the spots? Right? Like, how does
this feel in front of me?
Is there enough space?
You know, am My I...
Do I feel comfortable in the way that
I'm moving these things or does this seem
to make sense when I look at it?
I'll I'll do that with games, and I
have Solo play tested. I I heard me
now,
dexterity games. Where, like, I'm just trying to
see, like, does this functionally work the way
I think it does.
I did that a lot with Hap Cad
that Kelly and I worked on,
to make sure that the pieces
worked correctly
because I didn't... There was no strategy there.
I mean, I knew what the best strategy
was for how to throw and toss these
things. And if I couldn't make it work,
then I knew that that was probably really
bad.
So
Jason, I got news for you, baby. You're
solo play testing.
That's setting up the game,
just going through the motions.
That's all part of solo play testing. It
can end there sometimes.
Doesn't it doesn't mean going through a full
game. It doesn't mean, like, trying to recreate
the experience of a player.
Playing it for the first time or the
second time, it's...
Does this work at all so that when
I put it in front of other people
Mh.
They're at least not gonna have a question
of where to put this card when they're
done with it.
Right. I think that's a big part of
it. There's certainly much more you can do
with it.
Mh. But I think of that as as
Solo testing or, like, when I'm writing the
rule book, and I'm writing the setup section,
and I go and set up the game.
But, yeah, Robbie, you were talking about, like,
different games where it might work better and
and
might might be more difficult to do. Do
you have more more thoughts on that?
It's just that, you know,
you you wonder, like, would would that other
play would they would they be thinking that
I have this card? Or... So you just
you just can't get into that? I mean,
So you really... It's it just becomes AAA
matter of
simulating their choices and the numbers working out.
And and so... And you really do... You
can set yourself up for failure in that
you're playing it, and everything's working. You're like,
I've got choices. This is cool. This is
working. And but you're still the only person
who really knows out to and then you
drop it in front of somebody and and
they struggle with it. And and so, yeah.
Again, not the ideal way to test, but
just just a way to just see if
it's operating correctly.
But
there was something else Gonna say about that,
but I'll just move on and and pretend,
like I Am I'm able to can't maintain
it sri thought when I game. I've I've
got some categories of games, and I wrote
I wrote a difficulty level for that. Oh,
nice.
So I think... Awesome. An interactive real time
game.
I wrote impossible. Yeah. Right.
Flip flip the sand things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So
good luck with that. But also
hopefully, your rounds are, like, a minute long.
So if you can get play testers, maybe
you can test it like 5 times. But
in... I'm in envisioning like this Rub Goldberg,
there's ropes there's weights. I don't know Go
ahead. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe.
Well, it's it's whatever you want. Whatever you
want in there.
I wrote bluff
is hard but doable.
So the 1 thing is that the time
frame of a solo test depending on, you
know,
how much space you have where you live
and stuff like that, You know, not everybody
can leave a game set up forever,
but
If you are able, you can set up
your game, you could take the turn as
1 player, and you can take the next
turn
the next day when you've forgotten what the
1 player did,
if it's a bluff game. Right? Or 15
minutes later. Or 15 minutes, it depends on
your memory.
Yeah. If you're the guy from Meme, you
can you're gonna nail this, that moves anyway.
You. Yeah. He's still would struggle with real
time games. He'd keep forgetting the rules. But...
I hear I him to tattoo myself about
what my last move was. Yes. Okay. Mh.
I... And some some very difficult ones, I
think, are if you've designed
a logic puzzle or an escape room.
Something like that where it's... Where there is
a solution and you just know the solution.
That's that's pretty hard to test by yourself.
Yeah. Even was... Yeah. Sorry. So
so if that's if that's what you were
hoping for answers on,
I don't think you can do it, Jonathan.
The other thing that's awful about that that
Jonathan has mentioned before it.
Once you use a play test, you've burned
to play test. Right? Because. They can't play
that 1 again.
So... Yeah. Yeah. I've made a few logic
puzzle games,
and I have that same
situation, and it's, like,
gotta do rules testing because I can't be
there when they're doing it. And
once somebody read the rules and try to
do it and I've corrected them.
I can't use them again to read the
rules.
Mh. I can't use them again to see
if the puzzles are any good.
And they can't play the final game.
And then there's there's easier games, like, something
that is a multiplayer solitaire.
Category, not saying that in a bad way.
You know, you can just go from seat
to seat doing the turns
even some interactive games, you know, like the
bigger heroes and stuff like that.
Pretty pretty easy to just take a turn,
take the next turn. As long as you're
not, you don't have to react to a
bunch of people
when they're doing their turn. You can play
through the whole game. So I think in
most cases, it's it's pretty doable.
Just to get back, I got me thinking
about him when solo, multi handing,
tune
I have yet to play that with multiple
people. And yet, as I'm doing this, I'm
like, this would be so cool because, like,
just that that
mechanism of putting your pieces down to select
the cards and it'd be... I can't wait
to, like, play it and see, like, a
competing for the cards? Would they take this
1 for? You have to pay attention to,
Okay. When we get to the saga phase
I'm gonna be going first. Oh, so I
can go here. I'm gonna get that card.
But then later on, oh, Gonna take that
card for me. I mean, all that all
that comes out in the solo play test
and and you get to, like, start delving
into that and wondering how it'll go. But
you can also tell that operationally, it all
makes sense. Because, yeah, it looks like you
had to of a few things, you know,
you get the number of cards right, and
and then, the details about
discarding, and, yeah, it's it's
I don't know. III enjoy it, but
it's not the ideal way to test, obviously.
I would... I wish, like, ideally, yeah. If
you've got a group of, like, people you
can see every week that are totally cool
with you just throwing something on the table,
and you you push it around for a
bit and you're like, net or, hey, there's
something here. That's the best way. But but,
yeah, I know, if you can if you
can test it so and get it work
in that way. It's fun.
I have a story about when I did
a bad job solo testing a game.
This was Flip tricks, my my skateboarding card
game,
I think it was still snowboarding at that
time, but, it doesn't matter. So I delta
the hands and
And
and I looked at the hands
and I was like, well, it's trick taking.
So you probably pass a couple cards to
your left. And I pick up the hand
and I go.
I have no clue what I would pass.
I just picked 2 random ones, and I
look at the next hand I go,
I I've have no clue what I would
pass.
Was like, you know what? Play testers will
tell me what I should pass,
and the the answer was, no one's gonna
have
clue what to pass because the rules don't
make any sense.
So I I did the right thing, but
I didn't take any action, and I needed
to take action at that point, because then
I put it in front of people,
and it was a very, very rough test,
and it was like... You actually had good
feedback that you ignored. Right. Right. It's like,
I already had the feedback. I didn't need
to waste their time. Like, I could have
been it was at a game design meetup,
and I could have tested someone else's game
instead of putting that 1 on the table.
So I kind of that time I really
felt like I I was wasting people's times.
But... Yeah. So there... There's, you know,
Well, to go back to the question, Jason,
the... I'm never gonna remember the name of
this game, the Samurai game. 6S6.
Did you
play it? Like, did you try to do
a few hands of it on your by
myself before you? Yeah. Of course, not. I
was so sure it was gonna be good.
Why would I do that?
So... And going back to that 1, I
think that... What I would do. So that...
It sounds like that one's pretty interactive. Right?
Like... No. I could have a hundred percent
so tested that based on your criteria? No.
It was stupid.
I mean, there were... So there were hidden
rules. Right? So I guess that is...
But
I mean, to sit down,
deal yourself all the stuff out. Outright, look
at your card and say, okay. I'm a
cowboy,
on a steel horse.
But,
anyways, so I I do that,
and
I could say,
what do I want right now? Right? Exactly.
What do I wanna do?
And then when I get to the show
get same thing. Right? So Yeah. And what
is this character's objective, which was the same
question that those
testers had? Right? So you if you put
yourself in the
in the seat of the no gun player,
and you're like, okay. Well,
here's what I think I would maybe do
a on the first turn,
and here's what I think my end goal
is.
So it can just inform your teach whatever.
You won't even have to play the whole
game. Yeah. But... Yeah yeah.
So
so
now you say that stuff, It makes a
lot more sense, and I think I just
kinda wrote off solo play testing
as, like, I'm bad at this. So I'm
just never gonna do it.
Shannon I talk... Can I talk a little
bit about the process that I do use?
Yeah. Please. For others that may in this
same situation.
So
I this is gonna sound so stupid, But
I literally... I just...
I sit down and I basically solo play
test the game in my head.
But what I'm doing is I attempt to
think of scenarios
that were our problematic.
Or III use the old Matt Riddle line.
Where's the fun? Right? And I say to
myself. I can I'll sit there I'll close
my eyes, and I'll I'll kind of walk
myself through
what am Excited about doing in the game?
It's my turn, what can I do?
And
I'll be like, oh, because you could do
this in this, and I'm like, oh,
But what am I gonna do in the
main section here? Like, how's that gonna of
work?
Like, what happens on
for instance? I'm working on this this crib
game right now.
And
you're trying to build something, and I'm like,
what happens
with all these resources instead using in the
last
round of the game, the last couple rounds
of the game when I've already completed this
thing. How do I
like, how does that even work anymore? Because,
you know, and I'm like, oh,
well, I can do it this way. Right?
But, like,
I have to, like, kind of play it
in my head to do that. And I...
It's it's silly. Because when you say it
loud. To me that actually sounds like it
should be harder than sitting down and playing
it. In person, like, by yourself, like, physically,
but it's not for me. For me, that
is easier. To just sit down and walk
through it in my head.
I think
my problem is
when I sit down with the cards
or the board or whatever,
well, for 1, I've taken the game that
far
to that point for that to happen for
me to then say, well, this was bad.
But this other way, it allows me to
do that earlier, but I think the big
block for me is when I sit down
with those cards.
I am now kind of physically
my brain is physically contained
into dealing with what is in front of
me. Right?
So
it's the random card combo that I got.
Right? That I'm looking at in my hand
or whatever. And I know, like you said
before you could stack that. You can set
it up a certain way
but if I'm gonna do that,
I'm already doing the brain processing, thinking of
it through myself. Right?
And,
you know, for me,
having Ocd
means that
my brain
is always, like, running in the background on
just random stuff.
So sometimes, I can choose to assign those
background tasks to something useful, like, let's just
think about this game design obsessively for a
while. And then my brain will call out
problems as I'm doing that.
And so I realize that's not for everyone,
but it it works for me. So,
yeah.
Yeah. I think I think that's that's pretty
similar.
I think the 1
advantage I see to having it on the
table.
Is that if I were doing that same
thing in my head, I think I would
maybe mess some sequencing thing up, or I'd
I assume that the transition from this phase
to this phase is smooth.
Yes. I wouldn't realize that it is not.
But as a problem feedback you can get
from people too. Right? It's not it's not
a thing you can only come up with
on your own. Right right. That is though...
So
with the game hap has a Cad that,
the that game has several
sections to it as you play. You know,
you you get cards, then you throw cards,
then you draft things, then you
and these 3 to 4 main sections of
the game had lousy transition points.
And
we saw that a little bit in the
in the, like, like, in the solo... They
snow. In the solo testing, we completely
miss that. And then we did kind of,
just, like, messing around through in the cards,
and then it I started to click, like,
oh, this could be
wonky when you do this. And sure enough,
we brought to the play test like this
is wonky when you have to do these
things.
And they were, like, cut part of this
game, but the feedback was consistently, I love
every part of it. I don't love moving
between every part of it.
And that was
you know, that... That's stuff. But like, don't
got anything,
but cut the way that it goes between
them. Like, great. Great. We'll we'll do that.
You know,
So anyways, yeah. So I do think that
the transitional stuff is
you... I would miss that in my head
as well because I think we tend to
gloss over that.
I'm looking for interact problems I'm looking for,
but what will I do on turn 7
when we get to this point, you know,
I'm not thinking through those little pieces So
I think that's that's a really, really good
0.1
thing I need to do more of that
I don't do enough is
Yeah. Kinda not not writing, like, a flow
chart or or making an Automaton or wherever,
I mean. But but saying, alright. This player
is gonna going to strictly pursue this strategy.
This player strictly pursues this strategy.
That's 1 thing you can do.
To test the edges. But,
yeah. III
think it could go really far with it.
I mean, you could make flow charts for,
like, what each player is supposed to do.
So there's opportunities that I I haven't even
delved into, but I just kinda keep it
simple and just now, play comes to this
person,
you know, draw all the pieces out of
bag. These are their choices. These are their
cards.
They could do this or this.
But, you know, you don't get to, like,
since you know everything, you can't...
Yeah. You don't get to explore the the
area of of of the unknown. That's basically...
Yeah. That's the worst part of it.
So... And which is which is the game.
You know, the the unknown,
what what the other players are going to
do is is what a game is.
So, yeah. It's it's kinda limited in that
way for sure. But, you know,
Yeah. Testing testing different strategies is definitely something
you can do that can be
it could be early in the design. It
can be late in the design Rob Da
talks about this, with with his designs. He
he does solo testing as as, like 4
players.
And he he has this really interesting thing
that he says about it.
So
he he always has... I don't know the
same player colors.
In prototypes,
and so red is always an aggressive player.
There you go. And green
I think it's his favorite color, so it
plays like he would play
and blue has this other objective.
I think it sounds
a little bit
while to just
memorize those things and and do them. But
I do something similar. So
with my testing of, and it was also
the night that the skeletons came to life.
I would say, like, this player is trying
to dig up worms and get bones,
because that's their money. And this player trying
to beat everybody up, and this player is
just trying to pull hair, so it can
come back to life.
But No. What I said suggest this is
a gamer or did this happen? 10 Sorry.
Yeah. There's... This... While it happened, but I'm
making a game about it.
But what I did, I took it a
step further from Rob's
idea, and I took little pieces of paper
and wrote down those notes,
instead instead of memorizing these, like, player heuristic.
And that way you can have it be
more specific to that game. Right? Like, this
game is probably gonna have these 5 strategies.
Let's test these 5 strategies.
What does strategy 3 look like when it's
against strategy 1 and strategy 1,
you know, it it all depends on how
much time you have for
for solo testing because you can always get
different play testers
that will have their own strategies, but if
play testing sessions are few and far between,
you might be able to just recreate this
on your own. I mean, you designed it.
You should have some idea of what
the strategies are. Like, there be people that
try to break it. They try to come
up with a a strategy you didn't anticipate,
and that's great.
But there's only gonna be so many of
those.
Right? Like, I mean, you're gonna you're gonna
know most of them off the top of
your head just by thinking about it.
Well, and you could deliberately try to come
up with, like, some
game breaking strategies. But, yeah, I mean, you're
the end of the day you're only 1
brain. Right doing this. So,
yeah, you're you're probably gonna miss that that
that that strategy that's right in front of
your face that breaks the whole game, but
maybe not. Yeah.
We did it. We covered the topic.
We did. We covered the topic. So, I
mean, what are the... Let's pull some quick
lessons learned here? I think that, you know,
we do this sometimes, I think it's worth
doing around I think for me, look, let's
all say, well, 1 of something that we
came away with this from. For me, it
was that, apparently, I do solo play test.
And thanks to Joe I now know that
I sold a play test. That was gonna
be my takeaway.
Alright. Robbie, you have to go then.
Oh, just just just that I wish that
I could be like, so many of these
other designers that just have a regular test
in group and get it... Can get out
to 1 easily. And
and, you know, I I...
My been starting out my preference was to
just set the game up and play through
it and play through. And, it's useful, but
it's not it's not what game design is.
I think this is an important tool, but
don't be mistaken and you take the game
2 people, put it in front of them,
and don't be afraid for it to break.
If it breaks and it's a complete failure
who cares.
Now, you've got...
You've probably have more skill
designing, than someone else who hasn't made a
game and had it fail miserably
that you're gonna be able to pull from
because you know what those mistakes are.
There's a story of study that, like,
people who
yes them questions. There's 2 groups. Like the
group that knows the answer to the question,
they're, you know, so good at come pulling
the answer out again repeatedly.
But the group of people that don't know
the answer to the question and get it
wrong, and then are told the correct answer,
they'd never forget what the correct answer is.
So there has to be, like a parable
to that to design. Like,
you make these mistakes. And when you do,
you're gonna be better for it. And and
not only that, you're gonna be better than
the people who've never made the mistakes.
So failure great,
at least tell yourself that.
But but I but really, it is it
is true. Yeah. I I have heard that
parable. It was... I think it was... If
you teach a designer to fish, they'll know
how to fish, but if you teach them
to design, they'll know how to design.
Yeah. And then they usually... It's always wood
fish, wooden fish and then wow. Well, I'll
it do for don't need the 1 design.
Yeah. I'd... No. That's a great point though,
don't just solo test your game.
Put it put it in front of other
people. Put it in front of people online.
You use use break my game,
try to get
play testers through the the building the game,
discord to,
go to Produce spiel online.
There's there's a lot of online options. And
Similar to Solo testing,
testing online isn't gonna give you the exact
same
information as testing in person would.
Sometimes it might be, the feedback becomes this
is feedback about your digital
implementation instead of about the game.
Or, you know, you just didn't get the
Ui to work right. And so
that got in the way of of people
being able to give you good feedback on
your game.
That type of stuff is gonna happen. But...
So if you can't get with other groups,
there's stuff like that,
But, yeah, I can't I can't fix the
whole living far away problem.
I'm sitting here trying to figure out how
Jonathan Cha or test his game solo. I
just... There's just no ways. There's
so the the holiday ones? Or any of
his any of his puzzles and stuff like...
Yeah. That's a difficult.
I could do it if every puzzle
somehow related to what I ate the previous
day? There. I could... I could... I would
fail every time. I would never remember.
I for the last 4 days have been,
like, half dinner last night.
And then I think about it I had
for the last 2 weeks, except for the
day before,
and then finally like, oh, right. Right. Right.
That's sort and then an hour later, I
I play the same game. It's boring. It's
sucky game.
Coming soon. The kitchen catch up,
from
Wasn't Cha and Jason's Sling list. Yeah. I
made that. What's for dinner or what was
for dinner?
Right.
Into
game,
you go through your fridge.
Figure out which stuff is missing that you
bought.
You know, there's no more spaghetti noodles, and
there's no more sauce.
So I probably had spaghetti either yesterday or
the day before.
Hey you could be on something here, Jason.
You know?
That my, that's my pitch. The game where
you try to remember what you had last
night for dinner or other nights.
Lunch breakfast, it's all a mystery. Actually, for
breakfast, I usually have peanut butter toast, so
I generally can remember that. If I don't
have peanut butter toast, then I have no
clue what it was. So
also,
speaking of breakfast, I just wanna point out
this, sweet new... It's dirty right now with
the sweet new mug I got. Okay. While
I was in Alaska. You... Listeners you can't
see this, but it is...
It's maybe a company called native Northwest, and
they use
only
indigenous artists from that area, and they do
suffer for all... It's not just the Northwest.
It's it's a it's from all around. I've
actually seen another stores where they'll have, like,
tribes from that area artist,
who done stuff. And this is,
some really sweet drawing
from the
the coast Sal tribe,
and it is
of a Sas watch. And it's really cool.
And Very happy when I saw. I saw
1 day in a store when I was
in Alaska, and I was like, I want
that so bad. I don't need a coffee
mug.
I still have this other awesome coffee mug
that I use, that I got from Brian
V. Nice. That says, on the inside, it
says, open mind open heart, and it's got
a cool pride heart on the front of
it. Nice and I love it.
But I saw the next day I went
back. I said,
still want it and so I bought it
because we were leaving that day, so I
I had to get it so I did.
And yeah. So now I have a display
mug
from Brian, and now I have my current
Sas watch mug. And someday, I'll buy another
mug and then I'll have 2 display mugs
in my office.
I'm confused. Do you do you have 2
mugs total?
Oh, god, no. I have, like, all kinds
of them. Because the the 2 that I
keep out. I have the mug that I
keep in my office now as a decoration,
and I have the Sas mug, And then
I have about 70 other old mugs.
From all around. Right places we've gone, things
the kids have made, because you don't use
the ones the kids made, because you don't
wanna accidentally, like, break them. So those just
stay you know, and there... I guess I
could put those out on display too. Just
make my whole office just coffee mug theme.
Man you get a copy you.
It, like, if you use it, and then
you put it in the dishwasher and it
melts, you think they'll figure it's gone. They
won't have seen it for a year.
But then the... The day that it melts,
They'll be like, hey, dad. I was thinking,
what happened to that mug I made for
you. Okay?
And I'll be like,
Joe cal that I can put it in
in the dishwasher, and then it melted
so you can call them. Here's their number.
Yeah. Okay. That it That I was curious.
Yeah. That is a fun game.
Will they
notice that this is gone.
Like,
when you throw it in the trash. Like,
hey, it could be anything. You know? I
saw... Oh, go ahead. No I don't know.
Yeah. Just this stuffy.
They haven't this. I found in the corner.
It's been behind the dresser. It's going in
the trash.
And and sure enough, if it'll be, like
the next day. Where's is mister Pike here?
Anyway.
I
saw this amazing,
video
I was on Facebook. This lady is like,
I'm the worst parent ever. She said,
I like to go thrift,
and my daughter agreed to go with me.
She said so we went to the local
goodwill. The 1 I donate stuff too. I
was like well I know exactly where this
is going.
And the daughter comes over with this like,
it's like a hot plate thing like a,
you know, where you put, like, stuff like
that to it put hot stuff on, so
it doesn't melt your counter or whatever.
In anyways,
she brings it over and she's like, this
is mine. And she's like, oh, yeah, girl,
if it speaks to you, get it. She's
like, no. This is literally my. You donate
this.
She's like, so, I paid 3 99
to get back my child's art project because
I'm the worst mother ever.
It's like
that is amazing. That is awesome. Sometimes you
gotta clear the clutter.
It's true. It's true.
If we kept everything our kids, it's
made,
our house would be. We would be a
order house. Like, it just we would be.
Like, it would be papers everywhere.
So... Let's be honest. Let's be honest. It's
crap, art. I mean, come on. Get real.
Like, not all of it. I be better
artist. Just joking. Have some of it framed
in my office. So... Yeah. Some it's actually
quite amazing. So they'll bring something I'm, like,
what though? Who who's this? Wow. Yeah. Impressive.
But I have
Pair of scissors, my daughter drew several years
ago, and a some mountains, my son drew,
several years ago.
And on each side of them. It's on
each side of my Jeremy Bar
sign. So... And I'm not gonna explain what
that is, if you know you know, Jeremy
Bear, me tell your friends.
So based on your expressions, I'm gonna say
you don't know, but that's okay.
That I just have a I have a
art print that
Brian's dad made.
Nice.
Nice. Are you the 1 that ended up
with that?
Oh, I... Mine's just a digital copy that
I printed out. Okay. Okay. Okay. Because I
know somebody has liked it and Brian was,
like, he said He'll send it to you.
So. That's amazing. Yeah.
Nice.
I don't think I have anything else about
solo testing.
Yeah. I haven't have any... What about solo
testing? Anything else to say about it. Oh,
I thought you said I don't think I
have anything about soul testing. I was like,
you said a lot though, Joe.
Actually, you know what?
I don't think any of us have really
done it.
Let's make a new definition for it. A
really hard 1 to achieve.
You start.
Unfortunately,
you can't we have a policy on this
show. The only peer person that's able to
give definitions
definitively is Jonathan Cha, and he didn't wanna
hang out with us tonight. Yeah. So, yeah,
because of that,
we're not allowed to define anything per the
by laws of building a game that are
housed
somewhere in the discord if you can find
them. Let me know. Is that sure we
shouldn't just take a shot at defining euro
game.
No
No. No. No.
That was a very fun episode though.
And,
we will be doing more definitions in an
upcoming episode and I'm very excited about it.
I don't know what we're defining yet.
Jonathan gave us a list of things we
could define. And
I will do definition up episodes like that
with Jonathan and Emily, anytime they're available because
I just love them so much. Oh, the
episode is not the people that rotten awful
people, But the episodes are.
Yeah.
So well, hey, Y'all.
It's been great having you here.
And this is a fun topic. It was
a little shorter than normal, but it was
solo. So, you know,
that that you don't play a whole game.
That's how it works.
You tell,
Joe,
last time, you suggested that if people wanted
to get ahold of you just delete their
social media and go to
the discord, and they'd find you there. I'm
back on the socials now. Oh, you are.
It's been 2 weeks.
Yeah. So you can find me everywhere by
logging in deleting your account and finding me
on the discord.
I feel set up. I feel silly.
Robbie, what about you?
If feel like you're on Blue Sky at
least. Yeah. I think I'm Robbie Berg there.
You can go to... Facebook and search Ka
Walled City board game that'll take you to
that.
I'm gonna
honestly pitch like, My 1 of my band
members was gone to New Zealand, and he's
back. So we have the whole band back
together. Mh. So we're gonna start playing more
and maybe start recording and playing out more
And I went back and listened to this
8 song set of original songs on on
Youtube. And I'm and III freaking... I love
it. I don't... I love it. That's awesome.
Let you... Let's go listen to it. And
if you hate it, whatever. But I don't
think you will. I think it's really damn
awesome.
Go to go to Youtube and search the
smell of authenticity
by left foot breaking, and that's no e
in breaking.
And, listen to that whole set of songs,
and you're gonna be like, Rob was wright.
These guys are really freaking good. And I
just, I'm not afraid to say it anymore.
I love these guys. They're fun. We're gonna
do more. We're gonna get better and even
better, and we're gonna put out some more
music. So check that out. That's that's that's
me plugging myself. Forget game design. A game's
coming along. It's almost done. I like it.
I gotta write the rules. I'm just start
getting out there out out of the world
and play testing it. I like it.
It's fun. So we'll get it... We'll get
back to that soon. But we'll check out
some music for now. Well, I
went ahead and found this, and I'm gonna
subscribe to it right now. Noise. Now you
have 8 subscribers. So
just tracking that because that way, we know,
if you get a bunch subscribers from this
show. You'll know why. Is that all? Is
it 8... Well, some of those songs are
at, like, 300 plays or something...
Because this is subscribers to your channel. Not
Yeah Yeah. So, yeah. There's.
I think of those 300 plays, about 280
are probably me, but
Don't along with that. Well, I'll add to
the counts.
Yeah.
Awesome.
Great. Well, hey, listeners, if you wanna get
in touch with the podcast, you can of
course go to building the game.
Podcast dot com. There, you can find a
link to our discord, and then just go
straight there. You can delete our whole website
and then go to the discord. Don't do
that.
Also, you can go email us to building
game at gmail mail dot com.
If you feel the urge to do that,
you could instead
not do that and go to the discord.
You'll have more fun I promise.
And then finally,
am I play a song Sorry. I'm sorry.
I might play a song in the meet
up on Tuesdays. Come to the Tuesday meetup.
Yeah. Tuesday made up this week. Just before
this recording, We got
an awesome song that we are really enjoyed.
So
and but if you wanna you wanna keep
getting in touch with us or listening or
whatever. The easiest thing to do, of course.
Is keep coming back every single week. And
until next time, good night.
Night,
building the game building game? Which Jason and
France? With Jason and Brand, building the game,
building the game? Which Jason brands, which is
it it brand? The end of the episode.
That's... The technically queen's ends?