Top 7 Ways to Improve Your Playtest Feedback Quality - Ep. 55

04/16/17 • 20 min

Board Game Business Podcast

Here are our top 7 ways to improve your playtest feedback quality. If you want a spoiler, here's the list!

Ask negative leading questions. Trash/talk down your own game
Stay focused and interested in every word play testers say. Don’t defend anything. Don’t break their flow.
Focus on problems and steer away from solutions.
Ask about feelings.
Explain what type of feedback you're looking for.
Record Audio
Get anonymous feedback at least once and late in the process.

Resources:

Unpub Feedback Form - http://unpub.net/feedback/

Here are our top 7 ways to improve your playtest feedback quality. If you want a spoiler, here's the list!

Ask negative leading questions. Trash/talk down your own game
Stay focused and interested in every word play testers say. Don’t defend anything. Don’t break their flow.
Focus on problems and steer away from solutions.
Ask about feelings.
Explain what type of feedback you're looking for.
Record Audio
Get anonymous feedback at least once and late in the process.

Resources:

Unpub Feedback Form - http://unpub.net/feedback/

Previous Episode

How (Not) to Make a How to Play Video - Ep. 54

How-to-play videos are used more and more by designers to show potential publishers or playtesters their game and by publishers after a game has been released to teach customers how to play them. In honor of April Fool's Day, we give tips on how NOT to make a how-to-play video. I know, we're not supposed to tell you, but we really don't want people actually taking our advice. Here's the gist of the tips we cover, but backwards:

Prepare so you can keep it concise.
Keep it short. You don't need to say every corner case, but make sure to cover any confusing ones.
Use consistent terminology.
Use at least two camera angles so it's not just a talking head.
Layer in photos to help make your point and show examples.
Lighting is important! Light up your face with multiple lights at different angles so there are no shadows. (3-point lighting)
Light up your components to show them too, but with not glare. Don't use sleeves if they add glare.
Use a microphone close to you for clear and consistent audio. Clean the audio afterwards.
Make it easy to find the video online.

Next Episode

Target Markets - Ep. 56

Today we talk about designing and publishing games for a particular market. Here are some of the topics/questions we cover:

What's a target market?
Which markets are commonly considered in the board game industry?
Identifying the market that's right for your game.
Should I use elements to my game to fit a particular group of consumers?
Do publishers have a specific market in mind when they are scouting games?
How do things like ease of play and length of play factor into a market segment?
Should I design a game for a specific market?
Should designers put their target market on their sell sheet?
Are there specific conventions where you'll find publishers for specific markets?