One of the most strenuous parts of the game design process is playtesting. Our playtesters are amazing and we want to first thank them all for their time and dedication to making our games better. Zero Strategy Games would not be the same without them.

There are two major phases of playtesting we utilize for each one of our games, general playtesting and blind playtesting.

This playtesting phase is primarily focusing on the core gameplay experience. Is the game fun? Are there any things you would add or remove from the game to make it better? Essentially asking the question if we should proceed with the game.

We typically start this play phase in Tabletop Simulator. This allows us to playtest with any of our fans from around the world at any time! It's honestly a cool tool to make games and share them with others.

Once we get further along with our art and graphic design, then we will continue playtesting with a physical prototype. Since the game is further along, we are typically asking different types of questions that relate more to the physical presence of the game. For Unheist, it was more focused on the spinning board than anything else. It's an important mechanic you can't really test out virtually!

Blind playtesting is almost entirely focused on the rulebook. While it's easy to teach someone a game when you are playing it with them, it is a completely different skillset to write down the rules in a way that everyone can understand.

When blind playtesting, we do still take people's feedback about game mechanics, but the game is mostly finalized by that point. There are some tweaks we can still make, but the game should not be changing drastically at this stage in the game.

With all that said, we did actually have some last minute tweaks to the game thanks to our playtesters!

The first change was how goodie cards are distributed at the beginning of the game. Though it is now an optional rule, we did originally have players draft the cards in reverse turn order. This was to help balance the advantage players get by going first. However, this tended to slow down the start of the game and cause confusion with first time players, so now players just draw the top card of the goodie deck.

The second change was how the lever worked on the last turn. We originally had allowed players to pull the lever throughout the entire game. However, some spiteful players figured out they could just spin the lever near the end of the game to put other players directly in front of the dragon. This wasn't fun, as players would get grubby and have no way of getting clean before the game ends. We decided to "break" the lever for the last round of the game to keep that from happening.

The last change was when Junk is added to your Team bag. Originally, we had players add junk to their bag at the beginning of the game. This caused issues if junk was the first thing drawn from the bag because there was no rhyme or reason to put junk anywhere. So some players had to waste their first turn putting junk on the ground for no reason, just so they could grab another stuff token. We decided to add junk in as the game progresses to avoid this issue.

And that sums up our playtesting experience! If you are interested in being part of our playtesting for future games, check out our discord.

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