sand dogs playtest

I released the first playtest draft of Sand Dogs the other day, though for a while it’s available only to patrons. But what exactly do I expect from a playtest?

Well this is pretty late in the metaphorical game. The mechanical aspects are largely already complete and delivered in The King Machine, released in September. So for the core mechanisms of the game I’m not looking for input. And really, for a public playtest I wouldn’t be looking for that anyway. I split playtest into two distinct categories and the mechanical tinkering I do with people I know and love and trust completely. Now you, dear reader, I love as well, but I don’t really know you and so I can’t really trust you. I think you’re wonderful but I don’t know who you are.

What you can do, however, is even more important because I cannot trust people I know and love and trust to do it because they already know how the game works. I need other people to tell me if the text works.

This could be you!

This is impossible for me to do because as I read I fill in gaps with stuff in my head. If something’s missing I may never spot it. If things are not in a useful order, hell how would I know, I only see one page at a time and I’ve seen them all a thousand times already. For me the text is a giant amorphous mass and not a sequence of instructions. For this step we need fresh eyes.

 

That’s you. Really that’s nearly everyone that’s not me.

So if you grab a copy of Sand Dogs here’s what you can do that’s valuable to me:

Read it. I mean, obviously, right? I need it read. If you read it, take a moment to tell me whether it made sense, whether you had unanswered questions. Often at this time I get a lot of lists of typos — that’s super valuable as well, but not exactly what I need. I need to know if the text delivers a game and if so which game (so I can compare with my intentions). Step one is, does it make enough sense to sit down and try to play?

Play it. Well, we call it playtesting for a reason I guess. If you play it I want to know things like, did you have to go back to the text? What for? And most importantly, were you able to find what you needed? Easily? These things really come out in play because when you’re confused about a game in play it’s urgent and that’s when the text’s organization needs to lead you in the right direction. People talk about “rules getting out of the way” and this is not what they mean but this is more important: do the physical representation of the rules (the book) get out of the way and let you find the information you need and know is hidden in there somewhere? The text is a teaching tool first, but forever afterwards it’s a reference and it needs to succeed in both roles. Does it?

Or this. When it’s done.

Talk about it. Genuinely independent games (by which I mean a one or two dedicated losers like myself doing everything to get the game to print by themselves) need word of mouth to survive. If you love it, please in the name of all that’s holy, talk about it. If you only just like it, talk about it and talk about what you would improve. If you don’t like it, talk about it and especially talk about what you like and don’t like. No matter how you feel, talk about it: it will make it better and it will get it heard about. Visibility (I know I mixed a metaphor: sue me) is so very hard to get. You are how it happens.

Tell me about it. I need to know. I put it out there for my own nefarious purposes and not just as a patronage perq.

Thanks fiends. I genuinely think the Soft Horizon series is the best work I’ve ever done. It’s for grown ups. It’s fun. It’s sandboxish. It’s weird. It’s easy and fast. And it works online.

And I love you. I wouldn’t steer you wrong.