It Won't Always Be This Way
Sunday again. This is a regular part of my cadence.
On Sunday my playtest pool for The Queen Must Die knows I will be testing - the only question is "what time?" They are in many time zones, so I shake it up for them... okay - as dictated by the specific openings in my schedule.
Gawd, I am thankful for them. It's a deep group and I can rely on getting the 3-6 players I need once a week. And they are all players only - no designers. I don't need to trade game testing with them.
I want to stress - this is a temporary situation. I DO NOT have an unlimited supply of goodwill flowing from a bunch of unicorn-gamers who just want to play test what ever digital cardboard I put in front of them. I know how lucky I have been to get this group going and supporting me. I do not take them for granted. They are here just for The Queen Must Die, and just for this three month window of the mentorship, and I will be lucky if I can tap anywhere near this number of them again for a future project.
Today we faced a surprising challenge together - one I had not at all anticipated; one that didn't even really emerge from the game itself.
For the first time I had four players whose past experience with the game was completely separated from one another. Two of the four had played an earlier version together in the same session right at the start of the mentorship (even before orientation, actually), but no two players most-recent play had been of the same version. And the latest version of the game - today's version - has the biggest changes I've made in the game... possibly ever - certainly since after implementing what I discovered during my first ever play test.
I can teach a group of new comers everything they need to know in order to start the game in 10-15 minutes... 20 if there is someone who insists upon knowing more than they really need to know at first. But today, teaching four players who all know previous versions, it took close to 45 minutes!
I had to nullify four different sets of assumptions about how the game is played - each based on different overlapping versions - and then explain how it had all changed and would be played today. And I couldn't remember exactly which variants each individual had played, so it was pretty scattershot.
I figured I would just tell them what was new... but no - each had their own questions, and then one player's question would lead to a misunderstanding from another player who would do something like assume that the version mentioned in the first player's question was the way we were now playing when it had actually been a rule-set mothballed before the second player had even played for their first time. I'm experiencing mild anxiety just reliving enough of it to write about it!
I want to think that simply teaching the game entirely each time would be a clumsy, but reliable solution... but I fear that players would tune out what they already know and not tune back in for stuff they need updated versions of.
Is this how this is going to be from here on out?
It was frustrating for me, and I can't imagine it wasn't frustrating for them - and I do not want to burn the remarkable goodwill I have from this pack of magical creatures I've corralled into my mentorship journey. 50 minutes of RE-teach. Ugh.
Does anyone else have any experience with dealing with this and come up with good strategies? Please share them!
On Sunday my playtest pool for The Queen Must Die knows I will be testing - the only question is "what time?" They are in many time zones, so I shake it up for them... okay - as dictated by the specific openings in my schedule.
Gawd, I am thankful for them. It's a deep group and I can rely on getting the 3-6 players I need once a week. And they are all players only - no designers. I don't need to trade game testing with them.
I want to stress - this is a temporary situation. I DO NOT have an unlimited supply of goodwill flowing from a bunch of unicorn-gamers who just want to play test what ever digital cardboard I put in front of them. I know how lucky I have been to get this group going and supporting me. I do not take them for granted. They are here just for The Queen Must Die, and just for this three month window of the mentorship, and I will be lucky if I can tap anywhere near this number of them again for a future project.
Today we faced a surprising challenge together - one I had not at all anticipated; one that didn't even really emerge from the game itself.
For the first time I had four players whose past experience with the game was completely separated from one another. Two of the four had played an earlier version together in the same session right at the start of the mentorship (even before orientation, actually), but no two players most-recent play had been of the same version. And the latest version of the game - today's version - has the biggest changes I've made in the game... possibly ever - certainly since after implementing what I discovered during my first ever play test.
I can teach a group of new comers everything they need to know in order to start the game in 10-15 minutes... 20 if there is someone who insists upon knowing more than they really need to know at first. But today, teaching four players who all know previous versions, it took close to 45 minutes!
I had to nullify four different sets of assumptions about how the game is played - each based on different overlapping versions - and then explain how it had all changed and would be played today. And I couldn't remember exactly which variants each individual had played, so it was pretty scattershot.
I figured I would just tell them what was new... but no - each had their own questions, and then one player's question would lead to a misunderstanding from another player who would do something like assume that the version mentioned in the first player's question was the way we were now playing when it had actually been a rule-set mothballed before the second player had even played for their first time. I'm experiencing mild anxiety just reliving enough of it to write about it!
I want to think that simply teaching the game entirely each time would be a clumsy, but reliable solution... but I fear that players would tune out what they already know and not tune back in for stuff they need updated versions of.
Is this how this is going to be from here on out?
It was frustrating for me, and I can't imagine it wasn't frustrating for them - and I do not want to burn the remarkable goodwill I have from this pack of magical creatures I've corralled into my mentorship journey. 50 minutes of RE-teach. Ugh.
Does anyone else have any experience with dealing with this and come up with good strategies? Please share them!
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