Game Design 101 - Playtesting & Playtesters
- Mark Jambeck
- Apr 27
- 2 min read
Playtesting is THE most important component to game design. The feedback you receive from friends, family, and the community at large is critical to developing and shaping your game.
If you’re anything like me, you started out playtesting your game designs with friends and family. While friends and family will provide valuable insight, dedicated tabletop game communities, as well as other designers, will provide constructive and targeted feedback that is incredibly important to bringing out the best pieces in your design.
Finding a community to playtest with is often one of the most challenging parts of game design. Luckily, a few fantastic online groups exist to assist with your playtesting needs.
Break My Game (BMG) is my top recommendation for playtesting. The BMG community & Discord server is incredibly supportive and is filled with resources on game design, prototyping, publishing, community opportunities, and more. BMG is way more than just a playtesting server, and is a resource that I recommend for anyone looking to get into game design - you will learn a lot!
BMG runs daily playtesting events on their Discord hosted by an event manager at different times during the week. You sign your game up for your preferred day, join the playtest voice channel at the indicated time, and the event host will break all the attendees down into groups. You will have the chance to playtest other designer’s games and they will playtest yours - the community is built around supporting each other and giving back more than you take. All games are played virtually.
Virtual Prototyping is another great playtesting community. Playtesting events are less frequent but are well attended and a great option if you are looking for playtesting events at different times than the ones offered by BMG.
Conventions
While most of your weekly playtesting might be done with friends, family, or with virtual design groups, you may want to bring your designs to a convention, where you have the opportunity to play with groups of new people in and out of the gaming community. Included below are some options for finding conventions near you.
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