In the game, a documentary podcast. Today is Monday, July 20 second, and you're listening in episode 634. As always, I am your host, Jason. Here today joined by 2 lovely people. 1, just won't go away. That's Joe Ke. Welcome back all of a sudden after 1 episode away. You're back, back again, Joe is back. I'm back. Tell a game designer. You can't get rid of me. I'm Joe. It's good to have you here. And then also backed by popular request of I think just me. Yeah. I was gonna
say, Yeah. And me. I requested Robbie wants. Nice. You you did. You did. Robbie Berg is back And it's great to have you here. Great. Yeah. Yeah. So we're all we're all here. Just hanging out, like a big funky bunch. So 1 thing we're missing is, some mark Mark. Yeah. Wow, already. I mean, Time goes quick. Well, y'all. It's good to have you all here. Yeah. So, what's ever been been up to? Joe, you were just here, but what have you've been doing in the meantime the last 2 weeks?
Well, since the last episode, my first game got signed, Hey. I I delivered a prototype so they're bringing it to Gen con. I think just for internal testing. But and lots of solo testing of of different games and a little bit of work on the coloring book game that I that I pitched last time. Awesome. Awesome. Robbie, what about you? I think that since last time I was on, I went through incredible life changing pain, but that has mostly resolved, and I'm glad to be able to walk again.
And I won't delve in too much to that adventure, but I'm glad I got that experience to be able to comm with people who are in that situation. And I feel really bad for them. And in if any of you, is that you, then I feel bad for you and I'm sorry. Game wise been playing a lot of games with friends. They continue to
Wow, may come visit play games. They they made me pull off of pull out gloom haven jaws of the line out of the plastic and we played that for, like, 20 hours and much to the cha to my family who was avoiding the whole time, but it was mostly at night while they were asleep. And then, you know what I just... I mean, just you know, we're... We'll see though what the topic is in the in... In just another second, but kind of a... As said prelude. I was playing solo game,
blue haven buttons and bugs. I'm having a lot of fun with that. But then I was solo multi handed just now on the table over here. This game, it's it's it's called tier tuna knowledge. It's by this guy. I don't know. It's okay. I heard it's awful. It's it's okay. No. It's actually quite beautiful. And now that I've learned it, I think it's quite delightful, and I can't wait to play to people, but I'm playing it by myself. I played the solo version I really did
enjoy that. That was really cool. And then just to to preview the topic we're about to talk about I play. I'm playing a 3 player game by myself. So nice. Nice. That would mean. Do you do that to, like, help with your teach? Like, sure. New game? Okay. I... I sometimes we'll do that, Like, I'm gonna have have 3 people over, and I'll play, like, the first, however, many rounds of of a game that I'm I'm learning from the rule book or something. Just to make sure I understand the flow of it.
And then I can teach it a little bit better. For sure. And so... Okay. That is the topic. That it's What are we calling it? It's a, like, multi handed testing your game, solo. Not your solo game, but you're you're you're game with multiple players. Right. Right. I I don't know. Just to kinda just jump
off. Like, when I was getting back into the hobby because I was into it when I was 5 and 10 and in and and 14 and but then, like, that was 30 years ago, and I got back into it, like, 10 years ago, 8 years ago.
I don't know. But I got really excited and 1 of the ones like, you've heard my and I talking about, Z and this big game big box, and I dropped it on the table and sat there and played a 3 handed game by myself and built up the universe and know, taking everybody's turned by myself and at the end, like, there was this big moment at the end where I had to roll 3 die and whoever this player would have been what I had this incredible finish to the
game. It really exciting. But so, like, what what I find interesting is that as far as testing games, Solo, what I'm surprised to find is that a lot people say to me that, you know, they they they can't do it, or they don't wanna do it. And I was like, Well, you know how interesting is this topic, but then sure enough on Monday, I got an email from 1 of the newsletters I follow from 1 of the game designers that have their own class and such.
And and they're like, how to test your game with no play testers and and it was... You can do it yourself. I'm like, wow, wow, okay. So this is something that people are interested in. But I I just found a fascinating name that some people like, like, I've put videos of me playing it by myself and someone commented, like, this is incredible. And I'm like, is it? Okay. So anyway, I... The topic is interested to me.
But, yeah, what what what Joe you were saying that you have some stories about either being forced to play solo. Because, maybe you're like me where, like, I'm out in the Boo and I don't get to a lot of play tests, because there's not a lot around me. I have to drive, like, an hour and a half get to 1 and stuff like that. Yeah. I don't have to drive that far, but, scheduling things can be tough. I have a 21 month baby. So, you know, bad bedtime routine is a whole thing that takes up
3 hours of the night. And so it's it's a whole thing to either have people come over or or go to a play testing event. There are some that are near me, but they're scheduled during busy times like Saturday or Sunday. So we always have family over or something like that. But the 1 thing about Solo testing is that it is very quiet. You know, there's there's nobody coming through the front door, making noise and stuff like that. So, our baby really bad sleeper.
Really bad sleeper. We'll wake up. Oh, yeah. Any sounds. So it was that was a little bit of a of a difficult situation was, like, getting in play tests of things. But this is also a thing I've done with with other with other games. You know, I brought it up, usually just if I'm like, learning a game. I do, like, Solo testing as multiple players, well, not testing in that place, in that case playing. But I did it a lot with, commander, the the magic the gathering,
the variant or format. It's the more popular 1 now, I think. But So I have these 4 very distinct decks, and I can play them against each other. Well, I mean, I have, like, 10 of them. And so I pick 4 and play them against each other. And with that, you're doing similar things as you're doing to game design because when you're building your commander deck, you're you're setting up an experience that the other people are gonna
have. So sometimes it's a 1 hour to maybe sometimes up to, like, 2 and a half hour experience, 1 game of commander, and you want the other people playing with you to have a good time. You want them to have, like, a fairly even match. I find that that ends up being the most fun. So that was 1 way to find out, like, well, every time that this deck gets in this situation it just loses, or it blows up and it and it wins and it surprises everybody. So you start measuring them in like,
this is a 6 turn wind deck. This is a 14 turn win deck. So that you can take those out at the right time. To that ruin that social experience. That's interesting. I mean, like, because you hear about, you, when people are pitching a game, they'll set up, they'll preload the deck... So they come... You're kinda doing a similar thing there. Yeah. Yeah Yeah. Yep. So... But, yeah, Then this was a huge thing that just carried over naturally for me in in game design was doing solo testing
of my games. So these are not play throughs. They are still tests where I'm trying to answer a question. Right? Though. So every time I play test a game, I'm usually trying to answer a question. It might be a very well defined question, it might be a somewhat vague question. And it might be, does this work at all? So I wrote down a few of the top times for testing a game solo. This big 1 that I just wrote is sick.
When you are sick, is a good time to do solo testing if you're feeling up to it because you don't want other people to come over. When you're contagious. Yeah. Consider all places. Yeah. So that's that's a good option. But, of course, there's also online testing for when you're sick. So the the other options that I that I wrote down and these aren't the only times you can do it or anything like that. But
I think very early in a design. I'll usually do first several games solo to make sure that things work so that what I'm putting on the table in front of testers for the first time is something they can actually play. Yeah. Because I only get so many opportunities to to test. Like, if if you have a a weekly or a 2 times a week meetup up that you do, you might not need that but I'm may getting my games in front of people once a month or something. So
Hold on. And then I've I've also got after a major change, as we try to iron out. So that's kind of the same reasoning. And then late stage, maybe, figuring out cap strategy x. So... Yes. Yes. Late stage capitalism that's the main time that I do my testing. That's the age I live in. So working out awkward things like, turn order and other sequencing that that seems natural on paper. Mh. But then once you go and you actually do it,
this can be a helpful thing. Like, oh, I was frustrated every time I drew a card at this point. Because now I have to consider more information than I thought I needed to. Yeah. I mean, look at as a as as a form of testing. It's not ideal, obviously, for 1 the feedback is crap. So the other point I was gonna make is just like operationally getting through the game how the numbers work out, making sure you have all the pieces, like, get to the end.
I guess, anecdotally, like, I was on the first test of a of David Mo. Tears of joy, and we could tell it was an awesome game, and we got to the end, and and there was not enough pieces, or there was way too many. I forget, David, But could tell the game was awesome and gonna be great. But, like, Dave like, I did
the math totally wrong. Maybe a little quick self test beforehand might have played through a whole game multi handed and and the number you you see the numbers work out or something, But I'm not about to tell David how to design a game at all. Now, yeah. Beyond that. When I'm in, like... When I'm doing a game, I'm testing myself, I'm looking at are there choices here? You know? Like, before I put this in front of someone when play comes to this person, what are their choices?
Do they have 1 choice? Do they have no choices? Or do they have 2 or 3 that are interesting? And and as I go around and around, each time it comes to that each player? Like, do they have choices that are interesting? Would this be interesting? Or do they have too many? Because that's also, you know what I mean? Same lines As, like, are, are they gonna get Ap because they have too many choices. Right? Mh. That's something to remember when you're looking at that.
Right. And so that's something you see just by playing it by yourself. I'm curious, I speaking of anecdotes But, you know, you hear these stories... I'm sure everyone's done. I'm sure happens a lot. I... I'm just a hobby designer. I've got 1 design, well, maybe 2. But the these folks have generate tons and tons of designs and throw them at the table, and you'll bring a design to the table on a completely completely flops.
Jason You tell a story about 1 of your early ones it's the cyber samurai or something. Oh, 6 gun S. Yeah. 6 guns. 6 sugar. Now that 1, did you did you do any solo playing of it? Or did you just set and go. Be honest, well, and I have to complete this, but it was shit so S because it was really bad. So so here's what happened. III have this inspiration for a game that there was, like, a a Western town, you had these, like S or or Samurai or something like that, and you had these cowboys
trying to take over the town. And then you also had, like, a third faction. I don't remember who that was. Maybe it this is like the towns spoke who, like, were, like, W Right. Would be the guns. Right? Well, no. That was the cowboys. That was the 6 guns. The cowboys, and then the s guns, and then you had, like, the no guns, I guess. But they they were just like, hey, you know, get out of our town. But anyways, you were assigned at the beginning, I think randomly who you were part of,
long story short. I was very inspired. I made the heck out of this game, like, nice first prototype products Gen con played it with 4 or 5 players. I think it was 4. And I've was so... Like, this is gonna just crush it. And every part of the play test was bad. We quit early few rounds in, the people who were the no guns were, like, I didn't really understand what my goal was in this game at all. Like, I just was here and I didn't know what to do. And,
yeah. And it was bad, and it was embarrassing because it was, like, a bunch cool people agree to play and they all hated it. Like, real hardcore. But it was a big lesson. Right? And, like, you've gotta figure out you know, what you're doing before you throw that in front of people, But here's the thing. I am awful at So play testing. I've tried it. My brain does not work that way. So I still... I... What was that? I
was gonna say, said, what what... I... And I guess, for who else was saying that, maybe Jonathan, S. He's the 1 who maybe even requested this topic. Mh. He was. And then was like, I don't wanna talk to you jerks about it. But, okay. So what's... What do you struggle with? So I I don't know it's the whole process. Like, when I try to sit down with a game and solo test it, it just doesn't click for me. And and here's here's, I think why for me. I like games where players
discover things as they go. Not like, oh, we're, you know, I mean, sure they can discover new things But, like, I like when the... When they discover the strategy when they, you know, get to feel clever about the tricks and stuff they get to do in the game, like, in the actions they can take. And I can't feel that way because I designed that part portion of it, and I can't make my brain not not do that part.
So so it ends up just not feeling right to me, or it ends up feeling it ends up feeling like, oh, this was okay, and it's still not. Right? So I'm like, oh, the players will get this when they won't. Right. And so it's a huge part of what you can't right on and. So I I have a process that I use, and I can get into that. Or or I can give to that later when we're kind of, like, you know, it it doesn't matter to me. I I can talk about an hour where I can talk about it later,
But it was just not solo testing. Yeah. So I was just gonna say, I mean, obviously, it wouldn't work. For a lot of games, like, if they're heavily social or specifically just... You know, or even, like party. But I guess, you know, if there's cards and shit involved that you could at least, like, I don't know what this person's gonna do, but then then you have to get into, like, simulating their choices or what they would choose Right. Right. Like here's here's what I will do that's close to
solo testing that is physical. Right? I will set up the game and see how that looks. I'll see how it feels sitting at the table in the spots? Right? Like, how does this feel in front of me? Is there enough space? You know, am My I... Do I feel comfortable in the way that I'm moving these things or does this seem to make sense when I look at it? I'll I'll do that with games, and I have Solo play tested. I I heard me now,
dexterity games. Where, like, I'm just trying to see, like, does this functionally work the way I think it does. I did that a lot with Hap Cad that Kelly and I worked on, to make sure that the pieces worked correctly because I didn't... There was no strategy there. I mean, I knew what the best strategy was for how to throw and toss these things. And if I couldn't make it work, then I knew that that was probably really bad. So Jason, I got news for you, baby. You're solo play testing.
That's setting up the game, just going through the motions. That's all part of solo play testing. It can end there sometimes. Doesn't it doesn't mean going through a full game. It doesn't mean, like, trying to recreate the experience of a player. Playing it for the first time or the second time, it's... Does this work at all so that when I put it in front of other people Mh. They're at least not gonna have a question of where to put this card when they're done with it.
Right. I think that's a big part of it. There's certainly much more you can do with it. Mh. But I think of that as as Solo testing or, like, when I'm writing the rule book, and I'm writing the setup section, and I go and set up the game. But, yeah, Robbie, you were talking about, like, different games where it might work better and and might might be more difficult to do. Do you have more more thoughts on that?
It's just that, you know, you you wonder, like, would would that other play would they would they be thinking that I have this card? Or... So you just you just can't get into that? I mean, So you really... It's it just becomes AAA matter of simulating their choices and the numbers working out. And and so... And you really do... You can set yourself up for failure in that you're playing it, and everything's working. You're like, I've got choices. This is cool. This is
working. And but you're still the only person who really knows out to and then you drop it in front of somebody and and they struggle with it. And and so, yeah. Again, not the ideal way to test, but just just a way to just see if it's operating correctly. But there was something else Gonna say about that, but I'll just move on and and pretend, like I Am I'm able to can't maintain it sri thought when I game. I've I've got some categories of games, and I wrote
I wrote a difficulty level for that. Oh, nice. So I think... Awesome. An interactive real time game. I wrote impossible. Yeah. Right. Flip flip the sand things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So good luck with that. But also hopefully, your rounds are, like, a minute long. So if you can get play testers, maybe you can test it like 5 times. But in... I'm in envisioning like this Rub Goldberg, there's ropes there's weights. I don't know Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe.
Well, it's it's whatever you want. Whatever you want in there. I wrote bluff is hard but doable. So the 1 thing is that the time frame of a solo test depending on, you know, how much space you have where you live and stuff like that, You know, not everybody can leave a game set up forever, but If you are able, you can set up your game, you could take the turn as 1 player, and you can take the next turn the next day when you've forgotten what the 1 player did, if it's a bluff game. Right? Or 15
minutes later. Or 15 minutes, it depends on your memory. Yeah. If you're the guy from Meme, you can you're gonna nail this, that moves anyway. You. Yeah. He's still would struggle with real time games. He'd keep forgetting the rules. But... I hear I him to tattoo myself about what my last move was. Yes. Okay. Mh. I... And some some very difficult ones, I think, are if you've designed a logic puzzle or an escape room.
Something like that where it's... Where there is a solution and you just know the solution. That's that's pretty hard to test by yourself. Yeah. Even was... Yeah. Sorry. So so if that's if that's what you were hoping for answers on, I don't think you can do it, Jonathan. The other thing that's awful about that that Jonathan has mentioned before it. Once you use a play test, you've burned to play test. Right? Because. They can't play that 1 again.
So... Yeah. Yeah. I've made a few logic puzzle games, and I have that same situation, and it's, like, gotta do rules testing because I can't be there when they're doing it. And once somebody read the rules and try to do it and I've corrected them. I can't use them again to read the rules. Mh. I can't use them again to see if the puzzles are any good. And they can't play the final game. And then there's there's easier games, like, something that is a multiplayer solitaire.
Category, not saying that in a bad way. You know, you can just go from seat to seat doing the turns even some interactive games, you know, like the bigger heroes and stuff like that. Pretty pretty easy to just take a turn, take the next turn. As long as you're not, you don't have to react to a bunch of people when they're doing their turn. You can play through the whole game. So I think in most cases, it's it's pretty doable.
Just to get back, I got me thinking about him when solo, multi handing, tune I have yet to play that with multiple people. And yet, as I'm doing this, I'm like, this would be so cool because, like, just that that mechanism of putting your pieces down to select the cards and it'd be... I can't wait to, like, play it and see, like, a competing for the cards? Would they take this 1 for? You have to pay attention to, Okay. When we get to the saga phase I'm gonna be going first. Oh, so I
can go here. I'm gonna get that card. But then later on, oh, Gonna take that card for me. I mean, all that all that comes out in the solo play test and and you get to, like, start delving into that and wondering how it'll go. But you can also tell that operationally, it all makes sense. Because, yeah, it looks like you had to of a few things, you know, you get the number of cards right, and and then, the details about discarding, and, yeah, it's it's
I don't know. III enjoy it, but it's not the ideal way to test, obviously. I would... I wish, like, ideally, yeah. If you've got a group of, like, people you can see every week that are totally cool with you just throwing something on the table, and you you push it around for a bit and you're like, net or, hey, there's something here. That's the best way. But but, yeah, I know, if you can if you can test it so and get it work in that way. It's fun.
I have a story about when I did a bad job solo testing a game. This was Flip tricks, my my skateboarding card game, I think it was still snowboarding at that time, but, it doesn't matter. So I delta the hands and And and I looked at the hands and I was like, well, it's trick taking. So you probably pass a couple cards to your left. And I pick up the hand and I go. I have no clue what I would pass.
I just picked 2 random ones, and I look at the next hand I go, I I've have no clue what I would pass. Was like, you know what? Play testers will tell me what I should pass, and the the answer was, no one's gonna have clue what to pass because the rules don't make any sense. So I I did the right thing, but I didn't take any action, and I needed to take action at that point, because then I put it in front of people, and it was a very, very rough test, and it was like... You actually had good
feedback that you ignored. Right. Right. It's like, I already had the feedback. I didn't need to waste their time. Like, I could have been it was at a game design meetup, and I could have tested someone else's game instead of putting that 1 on the table. So I kind of that time I really felt like I I was wasting people's times. But... Yeah. So there... There's, you know, Well, to go back to the question, Jason, the... I'm never gonna remember the name of this game, the Samurai game. 6S6. Did you
play it? Like, did you try to do a few hands of it on your by myself before you? Yeah. Of course, not. I was so sure it was gonna be good. Why would I do that? So... And going back to that 1, I think that... What I would do. So that... It sounds like that one's pretty interactive. Right? Like... No. I could have a hundred percent so tested that based on your criteria? No. It was stupid. I mean, there were... So there were hidden rules. Right? So I guess that is... But I mean, to sit down,
deal yourself all the stuff out. Outright, look at your card and say, okay. I'm a cowboy, on a steel horse. But, anyways, so I I do that, and I could say, what do I want right now? Right? Exactly. What do I wanna do? And then when I get to the show get same thing. Right? So Yeah. And what is this character's objective, which was the same question that those testers had? Right? So you if you put yourself in the in the seat of the no gun player,
and you're like, okay. Well, here's what I think I would maybe do a on the first turn, and here's what I think my end goal is. So it can just inform your teach whatever. You won't even have to play the whole game. Yeah. But... Yeah yeah. So so now you say that stuff, It makes a lot more sense, and I think I just kinda wrote off solo play testing as, like, I'm bad at this. So I'm just never gonna do it. Shannon I talk... Can I talk a little bit about the process that I do use?
Yeah. Please. For others that may in this same situation. So I this is gonna sound so stupid, But I literally... I just... I sit down and I basically solo play test the game in my head. But what I'm doing is I attempt to think of scenarios that were our problematic. Or III use the old Matt Riddle line. Where's the fun? Right? And I say to myself. I can I'll sit there I'll close my eyes, and I'll I'll kind of walk myself through what am Excited about doing in the game?
It's my turn, what can I do? And I'll be like, oh, because you could do this in this, and I'm like, oh, But what am I gonna do in the main section here? Like, how's that gonna of work? Like, what happens on for instance? I'm working on this this crib game right now. And you're trying to build something, and I'm like, what happens with all these resources instead using in the last round of the game, the last couple rounds of the game when I've already completed this thing. How do I
like, how does that even work anymore? Because, you know, and I'm like, oh, well, I can do it this way. Right? But, like, I have to, like, kind of play it in my head to do that. And I... It's it's silly. Because when you say it loud. To me that actually sounds like it should be harder than sitting down and playing it. In person, like, by yourself, like, physically, but it's not for me. For me, that is easier. To just sit down and walk through it in my head.
I think my problem is when I sit down with the cards or the board or whatever, well, for 1, I've taken the game that far to that point for that to happen for me to then say, well, this was bad. But this other way, it allows me to do that earlier, but I think the big block for me is when I sit down with those cards. I am now kind of physically my brain is physically contained into dealing with what is in front of me. Right? So it's the random card combo that I got.
Right? That I'm looking at in my hand or whatever. And I know, like you said before you could stack that. You can set it up a certain way but if I'm gonna do that, I'm already doing the brain processing, thinking of it through myself. Right? And, you know, for me, having Ocd means that my brain is always, like, running in the background on just random stuff.
So sometimes, I can choose to assign those background tasks to something useful, like, let's just think about this game design obsessively for a while. And then my brain will call out problems as I'm doing that. And so I realize that's not for everyone, but it it works for me. So, yeah. Yeah. I think I think that's that's pretty similar. I think the 1 advantage I see to having it on the table.
Is that if I were doing that same thing in my head, I think I would maybe mess some sequencing thing up, or I'd I assume that the transition from this phase to this phase is smooth. Yes. I wouldn't realize that it is not. But as a problem feedback you can get from people too. Right? It's not it's not a thing you can only come up with on your own. Right right. That is though... So with the game hap has a Cad that, the that game has several
sections to it as you play. You know, you you get cards, then you throw cards, then you draft things, then you and these 3 to 4 main sections of the game had lousy transition points. And we saw that a little bit in the in the, like, like, in the solo... They snow. In the solo testing, we completely miss that. And then we did kind of, just, like, messing around through in the cards, and then it I started to click, like, oh, this could be
wonky when you do this. And sure enough, we brought to the play test like this is wonky when you have to do these things. And they were, like, cut part of this game, but the feedback was consistently, I love every part of it. I don't love moving between every part of it. And that was you know, that... That's stuff. But like, don't got anything, but cut the way that it goes between them. Like, great. Great. We'll we'll do that. You know,
So anyways, yeah. So I do think that the transitional stuff is you... I would miss that in my head as well because I think we tend to gloss over that. I'm looking for interact problems I'm looking for, but what will I do on turn 7 when we get to this point, you know, I'm not thinking through those little pieces So I think that's that's a really, really good 0.1 thing I need to do more of that I don't do enough is
Yeah. Kinda not not writing, like, a flow chart or or making an Automaton or wherever, I mean. But but saying, alright. This player is gonna going to strictly pursue this strategy. This player strictly pursues this strategy. That's 1 thing you can do. To test the edges. But, yeah. III think it could go really far with it. I mean, you could make flow charts for, like, what each player is supposed to do.
So there's opportunities that I I haven't even delved into, but I just kinda keep it simple and just now, play comes to this person, you know, draw all the pieces out of bag. These are their choices. These are their cards. They could do this or this. But, you know, you don't get to, like, since you know everything, you can't... Yeah. You don't get to explore the the area of of of the unknown. That's basically... Yeah. That's the worst part of it. So... And which is which is the game.
You know, the the unknown, what what the other players are going to do is is what a game is. So, yeah. It's it's kinda limited in that way for sure. But, you know, Yeah. Testing testing different strategies is definitely something you can do that can be it could be early in the design. It can be late in the design Rob Da talks about this, with with his designs. He he does solo testing as as, like 4 players. And he he has this really interesting thing that he says about it.
So he he always has... I don't know the same player colors. In prototypes, and so red is always an aggressive player. There you go. And green I think it's his favorite color, so it plays like he would play and blue has this other objective. I think it sounds a little bit while to just memorize those things and and do them. But I do something similar. So with my testing of, and it was also the night that the skeletons came to life.
I would say, like, this player is trying to dig up worms and get bones, because that's their money. And this player trying to beat everybody up, and this player is just trying to pull hair, so it can come back to life. But No. What I said suggest this is a gamer or did this happen? 10 Sorry. Yeah. There's... This... While it happened, but I'm making a game about it.
But what I did, I took it a step further from Rob's idea, and I took little pieces of paper and wrote down those notes, instead instead of memorizing these, like, player heuristic. And that way you can have it be more specific to that game. Right? Like, this game is probably gonna have these 5 strategies. Let's test these 5 strategies.
What does strategy 3 look like when it's against strategy 1 and strategy 1, you know, it it all depends on how much time you have for for solo testing because you can always get different play testers that will have their own strategies, but if play testing sessions are few and far between, you might be able to just recreate this on your own. I mean, you designed it. You should have some idea of what the strategies are. Like, there be people that
try to break it. They try to come up with a a strategy you didn't anticipate, and that's great. But there's only gonna be so many of those. Right? Like, I mean, you're gonna you're gonna know most of them off the top of your head just by thinking about it. Well, and you could deliberately try to come up with, like, some game breaking strategies. But, yeah, I mean, you're the end of the day you're only 1
brain. Right doing this. So, yeah, you're you're probably gonna miss that that that that strategy that's right in front of your face that breaks the whole game, but maybe not. Yeah. We did it. We covered the topic. We did. We covered the topic. So, I mean, what are the... Let's pull some quick lessons learned here? I think that, you know, we do this sometimes, I think it's worth doing around I think for me, look, let's all say, well, 1 of something that we
came away with this from. For me, it was that, apparently, I do solo play test. And thanks to Joe I now know that I sold a play test. That was gonna be my takeaway. Alright. Robbie, you have to go then. Oh, just just just that I wish that I could be like, so many of these other designers that just have a regular test in group and get it... Can get out to 1 easily. And and, you know, I I... My been starting out my preference was to just set the game up and play through
it and play through. And, it's useful, but it's not it's not what game design is. I think this is an important tool, but don't be mistaken and you take the game 2 people, put it in front of them, and don't be afraid for it to break. If it breaks and it's a complete failure who cares. Now, you've got... You've probably have more skill designing, than someone else who hasn't made a game and had it fail miserably that you're gonna be able to pull from because you know what those mistakes are.
There's a story of study that, like, people who yes them questions. There's 2 groups. Like the group that knows the answer to the question, they're, you know, so good at come pulling the answer out again repeatedly. But the group of people that don't know the answer to the question and get it wrong, and then are told the correct answer, they'd never forget what the correct answer is. So there has to be, like a parable to that to design. Like, you make these mistakes. And when you do,
you're gonna be better for it. And and not only that, you're gonna be better than the people who've never made the mistakes. So failure great, at least tell yourself that. But but I but really, it is it is true. Yeah. I I have heard that parable. It was... I think it was... If you teach a designer to fish, they'll know how to fish, but if you teach them to design, they'll know how to design. Yeah. And then they usually... It's always wood
fish, wooden fish and then wow. Well, I'll it do for don't need the 1 design. Yeah. I'd... No. That's a great point though, don't just solo test your game. Put it put it in front of other people. Put it in front of people online. You use use break my game, try to get play testers through the the building the game, discord to, go to Produce spiel online.
There's there's a lot of online options. And Similar to Solo testing, testing online isn't gonna give you the exact same information as testing in person would. Sometimes it might be, the feedback becomes this is feedback about your digital implementation instead of about the game. Or, you know, you just didn't get the Ui to work right. And so that got in the way of of people being able to give you good feedback on your game. That type of stuff is gonna happen. But...
So if you can't get with other groups, there's stuff like that, But, yeah, I can't I can't fix the whole living far away problem. I'm sitting here trying to figure out how Jonathan Cha or test his game solo. I just... There's just no ways. There's so the the holiday ones? Or any of his any of his puzzles and stuff like... Yeah. That's a difficult. I could do it if every puzzle somehow related to what I ate the previous day? There. I could... I could... I would
fail every time. I would never remember. I for the last 4 days have been, like, half dinner last night. And then I think about it I had for the last 2 weeks, except for the day before, and then finally like, oh, right. Right. Right. That's sort and then an hour later, I I play the same game. It's boring. It's sucky game. Coming soon. The kitchen catch up, from Wasn't Cha and Jason's Sling list. Yeah. I made that. What's for dinner or what was for dinner? Right.
Into game, you go through your fridge. Figure out which stuff is missing that you bought. You know, there's no more spaghetti noodles, and there's no more sauce. So I probably had spaghetti either yesterday or the day before. Hey you could be on something here, Jason. You know? That my, that's my pitch. The game where you try to remember what you had last night for dinner or other nights. Lunch breakfast, it's all a mystery. Actually, for breakfast, I usually have peanut butter toast, so
I generally can remember that. If I don't have peanut butter toast, then I have no clue what it was. So also, speaking of breakfast, I just wanna point out this, sweet new... It's dirty right now with the sweet new mug I got. Okay. While I was in Alaska. You... Listeners you can't see this, but it is... It's maybe a company called native Northwest, and they use only indigenous artists from that area, and they do suffer for all... It's not just the Northwest.
It's it's a it's from all around. I've actually seen another stores where they'll have, like, tribes from that area artist, who done stuff. And this is, some really sweet drawing from the the coast Sal tribe, and it is of a Sas watch. And it's really cool. And Very happy when I saw. I saw 1 day in a store when I was in Alaska, and I was like, I want that so bad. I don't need a coffee mug. I still have this other awesome coffee mug that I use, that I got from Brian
V. Nice. That says, on the inside, it says, open mind open heart, and it's got a cool pride heart on the front of it. Nice and I love it. But I saw the next day I went back. I said, still want it and so I bought it because we were leaving that day, so I I had to get it so I did. And yeah. So now I have a display mug from Brian, and now I have my current Sas watch mug. And someday, I'll buy another mug and then I'll have 2 display mugs in my office. I'm confused. Do you do you have 2 mugs total?
Oh, god, no. I have, like, all kinds of them. Because the the 2 that I keep out. I have the mug that I keep in my office now as a decoration, and I have the Sas mug, And then I have about 70 other old mugs. From all around. Right places we've gone, things the kids have made, because you don't use the ones the kids made, because you don't wanna accidentally, like, break them. So those just stay you know, and there... I guess I
could put those out on display too. Just make my whole office just coffee mug theme. Man you get a copy you. It, like, if you use it, and then you put it in the dishwasher and it melts, you think they'll figure it's gone. They won't have seen it for a year. But then the... The day that it melts, They'll be like, hey, dad. I was thinking, what happened to that mug I made for you. Okay? And I'll be like, Joe cal that I can put it in in the dishwasher, and then it melted
so you can call them. Here's their number. Yeah. Okay. That it That I was curious. Yeah. That is a fun game. Will they notice that this is gone. Like, when you throw it in the trash. Like, hey, it could be anything. You know? I saw... Oh, go ahead. No I don't know. Yeah. Just this stuffy. They haven't this. I found in the corner. It's been behind the dresser. It's going in the trash. And and sure enough, if it'll be, like the next day. Where's is mister Pike here? Anyway.
I saw this amazing, video I was on Facebook. This lady is like, I'm the worst parent ever. She said, I like to go thrift, and my daughter agreed to go with me. She said so we went to the local goodwill. The 1 I donate stuff too. I was like well I know exactly where this is going. And the daughter comes over with this like, it's like a hot plate thing like a, you know, where you put, like, stuff like that to it put hot stuff on, so it doesn't melt your counter or whatever.
In anyways, she brings it over and she's like, this is mine. And she's like, oh, yeah, girl, if it speaks to you, get it. She's like, no. This is literally my. You donate this. She's like, so, I paid 3 99 to get back my child's art project because I'm the worst mother ever. It's like that is amazing. That is awesome. Sometimes you gotta clear the clutter. It's true. It's true. If we kept everything our kids, it's made, our house would be. We would be a order house. Like, it just we would be.
Like, it would be papers everywhere. So... Let's be honest. Let's be honest. It's crap, art. I mean, come on. Get real. Like, not all of it. I be better artist. Just joking. Have some of it framed in my office. So... Yeah. Some it's actually quite amazing. So they'll bring something I'm, like, what though? Who who's this? Wow. Yeah. Impressive. But I have Pair of scissors, my daughter drew several years ago, and a some mountains, my son drew, several years ago.
And on each side of them. It's on each side of my Jeremy Bar sign. So... And I'm not gonna explain what that is, if you know you know, Jeremy Bear, me tell your friends. So based on your expressions, I'm gonna say you don't know, but that's okay. That I just have a I have a art print that Brian's dad made. Nice. Nice. Are you the 1 that ended up with that? Oh, I... Mine's just a digital copy that
I printed out. Okay. Okay. Okay. Because I know somebody has liked it and Brian was, like, he said He'll send it to you. So. That's amazing. Yeah. Nice. I don't think I have anything else about solo testing. Yeah. I haven't have any... What about solo testing? Anything else to say about it. Oh, I thought you said I don't think I have anything about soul testing. I was like, you said a lot though, Joe. Actually, you know what? I don't think any of us have really done it.
Let's make a new definition for it. A really hard 1 to achieve. You start. Unfortunately, you can't we have a policy on this show. The only peer person that's able to give definitions definitively is Jonathan Cha, and he didn't wanna hang out with us tonight. Yeah. So, yeah, because of that, we're not allowed to define anything per the by laws of building a game that are housed somewhere in the discord if you can find
them. Let me know. Is that sure we shouldn't just take a shot at defining euro game. No No. No. No. That was a very fun episode though. And, we will be doing more definitions in an upcoming episode and I'm very excited about it. I don't know what we're defining yet. Jonathan gave us a list of things we could define. And I will do definition up episodes like that with Jonathan and Emily, anytime they're available because
I just love them so much. Oh, the episode is not the people that rotten awful people, But the episodes are. Yeah. So well, hey, Y'all. It's been great having you here. And this is a fun topic. It was a little shorter than normal, but it was solo. So, you know, that that you don't play a whole game. That's how it works. You tell, Joe, last time, you suggested that if people wanted to get ahold of you just delete their social media and go to the discord, and they'd find you there. I'm
back on the socials now. Oh, you are. It's been 2 weeks. Yeah. So you can find me everywhere by logging in deleting your account and finding me on the discord. I feel set up. I feel silly. Robbie, what about you? If feel like you're on Blue Sky at least. Yeah. I think I'm Robbie Berg there. You can go to... Facebook and search Ka Walled City board game that'll take you to that. I'm gonna honestly pitch like, My 1 of my band members was gone to New Zealand, and he's
back. So we have the whole band back together. Mh. So we're gonna start playing more and maybe start recording and playing out more And I went back and listened to this 8 song set of original songs on on Youtube. And I'm and III freaking... I love it. I don't... I love it. That's awesome. Let you... Let's go listen to it. And if you hate it, whatever. But I don't think you will. I think it's really damn awesome.
Go to go to Youtube and search the smell of authenticity by left foot breaking, and that's no e in breaking. And, listen to that whole set of songs, and you're gonna be like, Rob was wright. These guys are really freaking good. And I just, I'm not afraid to say it anymore. I love these guys. They're fun. We're gonna do more. We're gonna get better and even better, and we're gonna put out some more music. So check that out. That's that's that's me plugging myself. Forget game design. A game's
coming along. It's almost done. I like it. I gotta write the rules. I'm just start getting out there out out of the world and play testing it. I like it. It's fun. So we'll get it... We'll get back to that soon. But we'll check out some music for now. Well, I went ahead and found this, and I'm gonna subscribe to it right now. Noise. Now you have 8 subscribers. So just tracking that because that way, we know, if you get a bunch subscribers from this show. You'll know why. Is that all? Is
it 8... Well, some of those songs are at, like, 300 plays or something... Because this is subscribers to your channel. Not Yeah Yeah. So, yeah. There's. I think of those 300 plays, about 280 are probably me, but Don't along with that. Well, I'll add to the counts. Yeah. Awesome. Great. Well, hey, listeners, if you wanna get in touch with the podcast, you can of course go to building the game. Podcast dot com. There, you can find a link to our discord, and then just go
straight there. You can delete our whole website and then go to the discord. Don't do that. Also, you can go email us to building game at gmail mail dot com. If you feel the urge to do that, you could instead not do that and go to the discord. You'll have more fun I promise. And then finally, am I play a song Sorry. I'm sorry. I might play a song in the meet up on Tuesdays. Come to the Tuesday meetup.
Yeah. Tuesday made up this week. Just before this recording, We got an awesome song that we are really enjoyed. So and but if you wanna you wanna keep getting in touch with us or listening or whatever. The easiest thing to do, of course. Is keep coming back every single week. And until next time, good night. Night, building the game building game? Which Jason and France? With Jason and Brand, building the game, building the game? Which Jason brands, which is it it brand? The end of the episode.
That's... The technically queen's ends?