Playtest Effectively Hello all, This is the second of three posts in regards to good habits to practice as a game developer. The first in this brief series was titled Focus on Completion, and can be found here . As I'm sure many of you are already aware, playtesting is, in its most basic form, the act of testing how a game plays before it is published in order to fix any flaws in a game before they become permanent. It is a key component of game development. Playtesting helps smooth out any issues with user interface. Playtesting helps find and address imbalances that you previously may have not known were there. Playtesting helps to grow a core audience for your game, people who already feel connected to and invested in your game, even before it's launched. In short, playtesting makes for a better game. There are, however, ways to go about playtesting that yield better results than others. When I began playtesting Portals: Worlds Collide , it was for the most par...
An Introduction Hello reader, My name is JT Anderson. I've been a game designer and developer for a little while now and although I'm certainly not well known even within the niche that is tabletop gaming, those who do know me generally recall me from the work I do with a small games company I run called Deraj Studios. While I have been writing up, testing and tweaking games for several years, I have yet to set out writing on the different aspects of design and development within tabletop gaming. That is what I intend to do with this blog. Over the next three posts I'll be going over three habits that help enforce good game design and development. Some of these are habits that I've practiced myself over the years, and some are habits that I'm striving to commit myself to. The first falls into the latter category. Focus on Completion As I've said I have been a game designer and developer (there is a difference between the two but I tend to wear bot...