GenCon 2019

I love indulging my nerdy passions, and GenCon is the nerd mecca that draws me to Indiana again and again. Originally a board game convention, it has expanded into a host of niche hobbies and geeky delights that sprawls across the heart of downtown Indianapolis for 4 days. Don’t worry, it’s still a board game convention at heart. I think I heard we broke 70,000 in attendance this year? I love seeing people dress up as their favorite characters or game references, and I always manage to find a few new games that peak my interest. But you know what my favorite part of GenCon is? The thing that gets me out of bed at 6:30am each morning on my vacation? The First Exposure playtest hall.

Each morning of the convention I typically spend 2-4 hours playtesting brand new games still in development at this playtest hall. I, along with a mixed crowd of regulars and new folks, pour ourselves groggily out of our hotels and slide towards the playtest hall, diligently waiting for the announcer to do his roll call and start the games. Almost every game is being taught by the designer. The available games are diverse both in the kinds of mechanics they use and their current stage of development. Some are rough and hand-drawn. Others are printed using card stock and boards like a game you’d buy at a store. It’s a fresh, immediate experience. I get to participate in a creative project while it’s in motion, and they get the opportunity to learn about their game through the perspective of a friendly stranger—a stranger who, while committed to being helpful and constructive, is not beholden to the preciousness of their design.

But this year something clicked for me: playtesting these games parallels what I do as an instructional designer with instructors at my actual job (I had to bring it back around to education somehow, right?). Think about it: on the one hand you have an expert who has devoted themselves to a particular subject and is passionate about creating an experience. On the other hand, you have the instructional designer, this person who is clueless about their subject, giving them feedback, telling them what works and what doesn’t work. When the game designer and playtesters are all on the same page, it’s great for everyone. We get to have a real conversation that produces new ideas and insights.

Occasionally you do find a game designer who benefits less from playtesting. The reasons can vary. They might not be quite sure of what they want to get out of playtesting, or even what exactly they want players to do to win their game. Playtesters can still be useful in these situations because we, by virtue of attempting to play their game, will draw these issues to the surface. Other game designers are not emotionally ready for playtesting. I have a BFA in painting, so I am intimately familiar with having your personal creative work critiqued by a room full of people with strong opinions. The art of critique could be a post all by itself, so I’m going to trot past that rabbit hole for now. Regardless, I know how difficult it can be to labor in seclusion on a project only to have it scrutinized by others. And I can’t guarantee that every playtester will be the most effective or kind in their feedback. Game designers have to be prepared to to receive all kinds of feedback and find the useful bits before they invite a bunch of strangers to examine their work.

So, I’m going to ask game designers to remember 3 things that make us helpful, and we’ll see how we can connect them to course design.

1. We are on your side.

I take pleasure in being a playtester because playing a game that might be unfinished or flat-out broken and then translating that experience into actionable, insightful feedback is a cultivated skill. Anyone can have a bad time playing a game. Anyone can have a good time playing a game. It takes a level of compassion, self-awareness, and critical experience to articulate why it was good or bad in a way that promotes the success of the game designer. Because, ultimately, that’s why I play test unfinished games: I want to see game designers succeed.

This is also the reason why I’m so passionate about instructional design—I’m on the side of my faculty. I want to help them create amazing learning experiences with their students. I want it so bad that I decided to focus on studying what constitutes an amazing learning experience! I think remembering this is important because critique can often feel adversarial. I know from experience that an outside perspective discussing the strengths and weaknesses of your design can feel like an attack. I remember one “game designer” who spent an hour fighting me and the other people at my table on every single point of feedback we offered. And, rarely, I’ve been told in various forms during playtests or course reviews that my opinion shouldn’t matter because I’m not an expert in their field or I don’t know how to play a certain type of game. Well, to that I say…

2. We aren’t experts in what you’re doing.

I am expressly not an expert on your design as a playtester. I actually think that’s one of my strengths. I can tell you what it’s like trying to process your design for the very first time. I don’t have a safety net of subject-matter familiarity to catch me when your structure or instructions don’t make sense. Instead, I am an expert at playtesting.

For example, I see game designers struggle with their playtesting because they haven’t figured out how to talk about the rules of their game. They’ve spent so much time watching new players get confused by corner cases, ask weird questions, or need rules repeated that it can warp how they prioritize information in the explanation. There’s a problem if you spend an hour talking about your game and I still don’t know what I’m supposed to do on my turn. Non-experts like me provide a necessary reality check. Most game designers are working toward the magic moment where someone sees their game on a shelf in a store, takes it home, and starts learning how to use it. In other words, the end goal is to have people who know nothing about your game try to learn to play it. To that end, playtesters offer a useful approximation of that new experience.

Similarly, instructors often struggle with sequencing the material for their class. A common mistake is spending an inordinate amount of time upfront discussing the history of a particular concept when the objective for the class it apply concept correctly in a given situation. Let’s use microscopes as an example. Although the process that lead to the invention of the microscope can be interesting, you do not need to know who Zacharias Janssen is in order to use one. Non-experts like me provide a necessary reality check. I promise you none of your students will read your syllabus as thoroughly as I will. I will diligently pore over every word of your instructions. How do you think your regular students will perform if I can’t follow what they’re supposed to submit to you by the second class meeting? Fortunately, instructional designers and playtesters are well-positioned to help you when we do find something that doesn’t quite work. Why?

3. We have seen a lot of designs.

Many of the playtesters I see at the playtest hall are regulars, coming back each day of the convention and each year. When the announcer asks everyone who has playtested there before to raise their hands, I’m in a sea of outstretched arms (I’m also not very tall, which heightens the effect for me). Working on a deck builder, but aren’t sure how to keep turns from dragging? I guarantee we’ve seen other deck building games tackle the same problem. Is your worker-placement game stuck because players keep forgetting the rules for where they can place their workers? Your playtesters can pull from all of the successful (and unsuccessful) alternatives games have tried over the years. One of my friends is basically a walking encyclopedia of current games. Almost every playtest session with him has a point where I can see the game designer’s face widen as they think “oh, I should’ve been writing this down,” followed by a scramble to get out their phone and take notes.

Many faculty will only ever see the courses they teach. Their job is not to go poking around in people’s courses; their job is to be an expert in what they do. But whether you’re designing games or courses, this insularity can make your designs repetitious. Instructional designers have seen how different courses tackle similar problems. I would be shocked if someone had a quiz format I had never seen before. Our breadth of experience is an asset to you, and we’re begging to share.

Honestly, I feel like there’s a lot more to be said here. I focused primarily on the creators to whom I’m providing feedback. I’ve framed playtesters and instructional designers in an enthusiastic light. I want to acknowledge that instructional designers could do with some reminding as well. But this article isn’t trying to call out or wag a finger. It’s about the principles I try to bring with me when I get a chance to look at your work. I’m always going to be excited by the act of making, and I hope I get the chance to experience your excitement, too.