Pulsipher Game Design

Learn to play solo

I am constantly (unfavorably) impressed by the number of would-be game designers who talk about producing "artwork" for their prototype and "getting other people to playtest" a game they've never played.

This immensely limits what you can do, folks. You don't need "artwork" to play a prototype solo. You're the designer, use your imagination! If you keep a good supply of various kinds of 3D pieces around you can come up with almost any piece you need in no time. You don't need laminated cards for a playtest prototype. If you have some blank business card stock around you can hand-make some cards quickly (or use a computer program to do it). If you need a board, hand-draw one if it takes too long to do a sketch version on the computer. I tend to make wargames, and my initial map used to be hand-drawn with grease pencil on transparent plastic laid across an out-of-copyright map downloaded from the Internet and printed large. Nowadays I have become sufficiently quick with CorelDraw that I usually create a computer map before actually playing, but I start with a hand-drawn map.

The first few times a game is played, "errors"--things that need changing--are inevitable. Why inflict this on your preciously-scarce playtester supply, when you can sort them out on your own?

While there are some kinds of games that may be difficult to play solo, a good game player should be able to put himself in a state of mind where he can play several separate sides in a "hidden information" game, sufficient to get the worst kinks out of a game before inflicting it in other people.

If there's an obvious problem, YOU need to find it and sort it out, not wait for Playtesters to do so. Let the testers play a game that's in a reasonable state, not one where they struggle with things that you should have discovered through solo testing. You'll be wasting their time, and yours! Use playtesters to discover problems you cannot see, not to discover problems you would have found if you'd bothered to play the game yourself.