#Playtesting

[mysticdragon3md3]

#game design #playtesting #testing #design #memes #videogames #humor #hbomberguy #quotes #post20240318a1958

[prokopetz]

The most consistent piece of playtest feedback I've been getting on Space Gerbils is that the Action Phase sucks, on two counts:

Blowing your roll in the Action Phase can retroactively make the Operations Phase minigame feel pointless, and there isn't really any provision for addressing runs of bad luck; some playtest groups routinely managed to whiff a 15/16 chance of success three or four cycles in a row, which makes the whole engagement grind to a halt, and there isn't an obvious way to mitigate that when an entire round of prep work boils down to a single roll of the dice.

The first point feeds into the second: the Operations Phase has its positional minigame, and the Fallout Phase has those lovely lookup tables, but then Action Phase hanging out between them is kind of nothing, mechanically speaking. Many players have reported that it feels like the Action Phase ought to have a minigame as well, and that it's incongruous for the portion of the phase cycle where stuff actually happens to be the least mechanically engaging.

There've also been reports, where drafts 0.1 and 0.2 would often become unplayable due to the play grid filling up with broken stations, drafts 0.3 and 0.4 have swung too far in the opposite direction and made complications too easy to mitigate. It's unclear whether this is due to the Action Phase's mechanics not throwing complications frequently enough, or due to the Fallout Phase not assessing those complications harshly enough; probably it's a mix of both.

Fortunately, the game's modular nature means that it's actually fairly trivial to rip out the current Action Phase procedures and replace them with something else; very little of the rest of the system would have to change. The trick is figuring out what that should look like.

The most obvious routes involve introducing individual actions in the Action Phase, but that's exactly what we don't want; mechanically, because we just made each gerbil perform a tactical action in the Operations Phase, and doing it twice in a row would double the handling time of an already ponderous system; and thematically, because acting "as" the gerbils' singular assumed persona after doing all that setup as individuals is kind of the whole point!

In balance, this is a good problem to have, because I enjoy designing stupid minigames.

As for what that hypothetical Action Phase minigame might look like, I keep coming back to the idea of taking a page from Gone to Hell and formalising the presently-optional rule that the players should take turns "being" the bounty hunter persona in each Action Phase. That would definitely help with sorting out the forthcoming rules for GMless play, since the players whose "turn" it isn't could step into the encounter management roll. However, that leaves the off-turn players twiddling their thumbs every Action Phase in GMful play, which in turns means either having two separate sets of Action Phase procedures for GMful and GMless play, or biting the bullet and making Space Gerbils exclusively GMless, neither of which terribly appeals.

This post is mostly just me thinking out loud, so I don't expect anyone to have an opinion, but as always, I'm open to suggestions!

#gaming #tabletop roleplaying #tabletop rpgs #space gerbils #game design #playtesting #swearing

[alpha-beta-gamer]

Luna Abyss is a spectacular narrative-driven Sci-Fi FPS with intense bullet hell combat as you explore a massive derelict megastructure!

Read More & Sign Up For The Beta (Steam)

#Gaming #indie games #pc games #pc gaming #beta #playtesting #pc game #FPS #alpha beta gamer #Sci-Fi

[sahonithereadwolf]

"Protect the Sacred's first complete playtest is here! Protect the Sacred is a anticolonial pulp adventure game that looks to emulate the mood and tone of the pulp movement beyond just as the globe-trekking adventure of stories like Indiana Jones, Johnny Quest, and Tomb Raider, but also pulp as horror, mystery, sci-fi, drama, and even romance.

In Protect The Sacred you work as a member of The Memento Group, an organization that, nominally, is an international nonprofit who is mostly interested in historical preservation, cultural outreach, and the building and support of museums and landmarks. As well as deconstructing and interrogating the colonial legacies of various academias and how they continue into today.

In truth, while they do that work and more, they are also a community-facing resource of specialists who look to protect, preserve, and reclaim a world of magic, monsters, and mystical artifacts on behalf of who they belong to and on that community's terms. Because for the Players of Protect The Sacred, all the intangibles of culture are all so very tangible.

Play as adventurers armed with folkloric magic power, deeply rooted in their connections to the culture around them. From wielding a legendary magical item, to practicing a cultrual magic, to taking the form of the fiercest monsters from your people's stories.

Explore the mythic realms talked about in the legends of heroes and gods as part of the Grand Outside, a magical otherworld in a mutually affecting relationship with the material. Explore a secret wizards nightmarket for clues and rumors on a trail for a stolen remains. Brave impossible and strange dungeons formed by stories that need to be told and stare truth straight in the eyes. Plan a heist to steal back the pilfered and stolen.

In this game I look to ask people to consider themselves, their relationship to culture, and what it looks like. I want you to consider and think on the meaning and value of the stories, lessons, and skills we pass on to others. I want to ask how we could challenge the ways we build and engage with history and these stories. This is a game where you fist fight fascism in many forms. It's a game about telling stories and building heroes. Are you ready to Protect the Sacred?" --- Information about joining the playtest can be found in the link! I'm excited to show y'all what I've been working on for about 2 and a half years.

#indie ttrpg #ttrpg #game design #protect the sacred rpg #playtesting

[larkingame]

hi friends! i hope you're doing well :) with all the great big changes to larkin, I'm putting in a final call for beta-testers and readers for both the five chapter demo-version of larkin to be released on April 29th, 2024 and the final version of larkin to be released on April 29th, 2025.

apologies I'm putting out another form, the first call went through and ran into some creator-error as a lot of the contact information got muddled, so i wanted to put forth a new call hoping to hear from testers old and new. I'm looking for about 25-30 players, as Larkin has grown significantly in chapters (20+ chapters) with several major plot routes and romance routes added, so I need a lot of thoughts and feedback on it.

if you could do me a favor and fill out this form, I'll be responding early next week.

*note, if you've already been selected as a beta-tester previously, don't worry! I'll be shooting you a message within the next few days.*

Larkin: Resurrection is the first in a series of text-adventure games that relies heavily on player choice. A vampire western, the game takes place in the fictional town of Larkin, Nevada, where you the player step into the shoes of the player character--or The Preacher. The Preacher, apprentice to the prolific vampire hunter, Wyatt Abrams, and one of the last remaining survivors of the Vampire-Hunting Cult, The Abrams Family, is suddenly thrust into the position of Town Preacher for Larkin. Demons from the players past seem to chase the Preacher--only made worse when the local mine explodes--and you're at the center of the conspiracy.   Larkin is rated 18+ for themes of gore, violence, religious trauma and sexual implicity.  The demo of the game will be released, April 29th 2024, with the slated release for the final version of the game, April 29th of 2025. Once betas are selected, the demo version of the game will be sent to players April 1st, 2024 -- testers will have one month to go through the text and collect feedback.  Playtesters and beta-readers will be tasked with playing through and reading the content of the game, testing for coding errors, and giving thoughts/feedback on their personal experiences with the text of the game. Testers will be selected based on experience, and willingness to explore different avenues and choices of the game.  

#larkin if #if #larkin #interactive fiction #choose your own adventure #text based game #cyoa #vampires #game testing #beta reading #beta request #beta readers #playtesting

[undertale-accessibility]

In case you missed it, the Undertale Accessibility playtest is out now! This is a great opportunity to hear some of the voice acting and get a look at the control system. This test also reveals the voice of the narrator. Seeing and sharing the video will help the Undertale Accessibility Project greatly. Have fun stealing candy, everyone. 😋 (You need to watch it on YouTube for the controls to work.)

#undertale #voice acting #toby fox #sneak peek #bettina levy #accessibility #youtube #animation #choose your own adventure #playtesting

[tangleworm]

My game is available for playtest now! :D https://magnesiumninja.itch.io/nomia Thanks for taking a look!

#gamedev #indie games #nomia #playtesting

[blackblooms]

Calling for Playtesters!

Well ive been making quite a bit of progress when it comes to polishing dialogue and its about time i make another call for playtester and sensitivity testers.

The latter would especially be appreciated as i tend to put a lot of thought and effort into representation and complex themes, which can lead to a lot of misguided writing and unfortunate implications slipping by my limited perspective. To anyone interested, contact me through private chat and i will forward you a build. -------------- As for everyone else, keep spreading the word about the game and share THIS LINK to get the game as many followers as possible before release. Making a game is one thing, but it wont matter how good it is if nobody even knows it exists. Maybe ill even prepare some rewards for each milestone we reach. Lets start simple. Once the game reach 20 follows on Gamejolt, i`ll make a post covering the game's main antagonist.

Thanks for following the project everyone and remember....they are watching...

#game development #solodev #indiegamedev #irredeamable #playtesting #devlog #indiedev #fantasy #fantasy world #indie games #followers #gamejolt #playtest

[tellioari]

Squashed Playtesting Begins!

Playtesting for our first mod, Squashed, has begun! We have opened our GitHub to the public, as well as provided a download for the mod in our discord server.

Any bugs, strange behaviors, or mod compatibility issues should be reported in #squashed-feedback in the server as well. The mod will be released on Modrinth once the playtesting phase is over.

We're excited to hear from you!

#minecraft #minecraft mods #modded minecraft #mineblr #mc #squashed #bugs #playtesting

[queerdisagreeable]

You stumble into the bedroom at this awful, spirit-soaked party. You are drunk, you are heartbroken, you are alone. And yet, there is a presence here. You call out to it: "I am A NOBODY. I am looking for FAME & GLORY, in order to WIN BACK SOMEONE I LOST. You will help me by MAKING ME GREAT."

You have been slumbering here for so long, in the cracks between reality. You have almost given up, when a hand reaches towards you, bathing you in unbearably bright reality. You call out to it: "I am SOMETHING UNKNOWABLE. I am looking for DEEP FEAR, in order to BECOME REAL. You will help me by SPREADING DREAD."

You seal your pact sloppily -- a palm cut on a broken bottle and a blackness seeping into your veins. You feel it within you, this unknowable thing, your new Patron. Your power grows.

You have a body. It's a bright, beating thing. Unruly, perhaps, but that will soon be amended. Your Warlock walks with shadow in its step, and you bleed into reality. Your power grows.

Together, you can TAKE ON THE WORLD.

~~

The beta test for my 2-player Warlock/Patron TTRPG is up! You can check it out right now for free on itch.io -- all you need to play is a d8, a deck of cards, a handful of tokens.

#warlock #ttrpg #indie ttrpg #card games #warlockcore #itchio #my art #beta testing #playtesting #patron #52SYS #52 Ways To Sell Your Soul #senseless ramblings

[titanomachy-ttrpg]

TITANOMACHY: Dreams of the Hue | Omens 05 & 06

Art credit to the incredible Jonatan Anjos

Aqua/Marine | background: SALT OF THE EARTH | hustle: TRAUMA TEAMSTER | specialty: CYBOTEUR (L)

RUFUS | background: POSTHUMAN (MARIPOSA) | hustle: HAULER | specialty: CHARIOTEER (R)

Vroom-vroom, Omens, this world won't fell itself.

High-octane action is a centerpeice of TDoth, you are highly empowered individuals setting out to fundamentally change the world - we assume you have the proficiencies to do as such.

Omens move fast, and the Charioteer is the queen of keeping that speed assured. Rufus here has taken control of a truck from the hood using her BlackThumbs augs, plasma leashes giving her control of any vehicle she can get within a whip's length from. As well, her Chuggaway Mag-Boots keep her solidly (and stylishly) affixed to any metal surface.

Behind her, her Friend-in-the-Chair Aqua/Marine furiously types away on her Hardened Cyberdeck, assuring Aqua's safety on the highways they're precariously traveling.

These two are our first glimpses of Omens engaged in a Strike, the core structure of TDoth. Similar to Cyberpunk's Runs, Blades in the Dark's Heists and Wildsea's Voyages, Strikes are distinct missions with an end-goal of weakening a Titan's power one way or another. Many are high-energy, combat filled take-downs, and some are subtle social soirees simmering with explosive tension.

We got plenty more coming, including some devlogs from yours truly! I hope you can join us over on our playtest Discord, where we continuously refine and expand our playtest program to make this the best game it possibly can be.

As always, hope to see in there. We'd love to have you~

-Sillion

#indie ttrpg #ttrpg community #biopunk #cyberpunk #y2k #wildsea #wild sea #tabletop roleplaying #tabletop rpg #tabletop games #ttrpg #ttrpg design #playtesting #queer ttrpg #TDOTH #Titanomachy #character art #original character #TDoth Iconics #Iconics

[prokopetz]

Brief summary of my thoughts so far now that I've done character creation and played half a session (we broke in the middle but may come back to it):

1) 7 players and a GM is too many. I know you know this already but I want to reaffirm it because that was what we had and it was really hard to understand what was going on.

2) I made my character 100% random and then backsolved an identity from there, and it worked better than it had any right to. The Traits are very evocative and I immediately had ideas of what I wanted my God Eater to look like.

3) I'm not sure the Calamity Clock is explained as clearly as I'd like it to be; to be honest, Tests in general are explained in a pretty convoluted way. It felt like some of the less-experienced TTRPG players at the table struggled with them, especially coming from a 5e-only background.

Sorry if this isn't the most helpful feedback; I'm just getting my thoughts down before any more time passes and I forget how the session went. I'll do a more full writeup if/when we finish the session.

(With reference to this post here.)

I definitely agree that the process of making tests could use a cheat sheet, and that's something that will be present in future revisions. However, it's worth noting that it's probably impossible to boil it down to something that a player with a 5E-only background would find intuitive because of some pretty basic differences in what kind of games they are.

In brief, 5E (and Dungeons & Dragons in general) keeps its conflict resolution mechanics almost entirely GM-facing in order to make it easier to onboard new players. Those mechanics are structured in such a way that it's completely feasible for the GM to figure out the target numbers, the applicable modifiers, the range of plausible outcomes, and the interpretation of the results with no player input whatsoever, with the player's sole responsibility being to roll a die with the correct number of sides (and if push comes to shove, the GM can do that part, too).

Eat God, conversely, is designed from the ground up to readily support GMless play (the specific rules for that will be in a forthcoming revision), which means that its conflict resolution mechanics can't be purely GM-facing. It puts a lot more responsibility on the player in terms of figuring out what the hell is going on, both narratively and mechanically, because its design goals mean it has to.

That said, it might help to frame it for a 5E player like this:

Making a test in Eat God is like playing blackjack: rather than rolling as high as possible, you want to roll as high as possible without going bust; "going bust" means all of your dice came up higher than your relevant Facet.

Everybody gets one die to start. If you can use any of your Traits to help with whatever you're trying to do, you get advantage on the test and roll an extra die. Unlike 5E, advantage stacks, to a maximum of five dice.

Instead of having a separate "damage roll", Eat God gets "did I hit or miss?" and "how much damage did I do?" from a single roll. A test's "damage" is the face value of the highest die that didn't go bust; the rules refer to this "damage" as a capital-R "Result".

You can get bonuses or penalties to a test's "damage" based on how effective the GM thinks your approach is. The GM will generally tell you about these modifiers before rolling. A penalty can't turn a success into a failure, no matter your Result; just like in 5E, a successful hit always inflicts at least one "damage".

Instead of critical hits, Eat God has critical fuckups. These have a range of dice roll values that trigger them, just like conventional crits; for example, you might score a critical fuckup on a roll of 11+, just like a champion archetype fighter in 5E gets a critical hit on a roll of 19+. This range can vary depending on how goofy the GM thinks your approach is.

Critical fuckups are assessed on a per die basis, so if you're rolling multiple dice, it's possible to generate multiple critical fuckups on the same roll. Yes, this also means that rolling multiple dice makes you more likely to succeed and more likely to fuck up, and creates the possibility of doing both on the same test. This is intentional.

When you roll a critical fuckup, the GM doesn't have to make something bad happen to you right away. They can do that, or they can take the fuckup and bank it toward a countdown to a really big fuckup that affects the whole adventure. You can see this countdown, but the GM is not obligated to tell you what will happen when it hits zero.

#gaming #tabletop roleplaying #tabletop rpgs #eat god #game design #playtesting #swearing

[alpha-beta-gamer]

Captain Wayne: Vacation Desperation is a GZDoom powered retro FPS about a salty sea captain with a double-barrel shotgun for an arm!

Read mOre & Play The Beta Demo, Free (Windows)

#Gaming #indie games #Captain Wayne: Vacation Desperation #pc games #pc gaming #beta #playtesting #video games #Doom #FPS

[christiansorrell]

Play Report: Tacticians of Ahm #2

Tonight, I ran the second session of an ongoing playtest of an upcoming starter Tacticians of Ahm adventure I'm hoping to get out in the February update (the game is itchfunding now). So, here's a play report (and here's a link to the first play report)!

After the chaos of the griffin attack on the Academy's field day, everyone went back inside the Academy walls for safety. Both griffins, including the one carrying Von Lopesbane, flew off to the northeast, after getting hit by enough attacks from the professors and student tacticians below to be thoroughly annoyed.

Inside the walls, the party saw a number of scouts coming in from the north, west, and eastern roads, all with the same news: sightings and reports of imperial soldiers (even several skyriders - the empress's griffin rider legion) attacking Ahmian citizens - all while proclaiming to be fighting back against the corrupt1on!

Groups of Tacticians and their advisors began to form parties to go out and address these various reports - after all what's a better final exam than the real thing? Professor Dana Turr, an elderly naga woman and the Senior Term headmaster, gave the group an option (since their advisor, Von Lopesbane, was missing): Find Von Lopesbane on their own and it will earn them a guaranteed early graduation and exemption from the remaining weeks of exercises. The other Tacticians on site at the Academy are spread too thin with more violent reports nearby, but she can't abandon Von Lopesbane and if the imperial army is involved, this could be serious enough to actually mean he's in serious risk.

The group agreed and were sent off to Quartermaster Bormos to get field equipment before heading out: 5 rations, a healing potion, and a piece of equipment (under 25g) of their choice. Both Tacticians took Leather Armor. Quablin bought both of them backpacks for the road.

The group headed out, into the region northeast of the academy in search of Von Lopesbane.

The party was somewhat familiar with this region from their time at the Academy. To the north was Four Families, a collection of four family farms all housed very close to one another - the road eerily quiet. To the east, the village of Dodona - smoke rising up from that direction in the distance. To the far north, ruins of an old war watchtower, formally abandoned for centuries.

Helios pushed for the group to head to Four Families and then east towards Dodona. The road was strangely quiet on the way (no random encounters were rolled).

They arrived at the farmhouses and found it, again, strangely quiet. They approached the nearest house and a halfling farmer whispered at them out of the shrubs - There are soldiers in the house! They attacked the other houses and his family only just made it out in time.

Helios approached the house and tried to convince the soldiers inside that she was a higher ranking officer, but the soldiers were assured in their mission, claiming Helios to likely be an agent of the corrupti0n. Frustrated, Helios kicked down the door and rushed in!

Over a 4 round fight, the Tacticians faced 1 Lietenant (EL2) and 2 Spearman (EL1). Through a clever use of Stupor to stun two of the enemies followed by a perfect backstab from Helios the group took the fight but both were just a strike away from falling. The gained 1 XP, 1 RP for their combo and leveled their Relationship to Level 1.

They questioned the defeated troops, you seemed out of sorts, babbling about corrupt1on, being far from home, and the vile nature of the White Walled City - almost as if the concepts of D4RKW3LL and Ahm were swapped in their mind.

Next time, the party travels onward!

[Design notes: We were testing some changes/expansions here to overland travel as it is currently written in the published rulebook. It's more of a node-based pointcrawl than a traditional hexcrawl (like the FF Tactics overworld map). The other thing I'm focusing on going forward in playtests in holding myself better to the digital nature of the world and highlighting those aspects (and providing guidance in the rulebook for GMs to know how to do the same).](edited)

Tacticians of Ahm is itchfunding now and it currently at it's lowest price (just $15 USD) with monthly updates coming from February to September of this year (and hopefully beyond)!

#ttrpg #ttrpgs #indie ttrpg #rpg #fantasy #play report #playtesting #tacticians of ahm #tactics

[pleasantonshire]

A lil' playtest

I felt burnt out from all the building and decorating. So, I decided to playtest the neighborhood with the Pleasant family (and Kaylynn as servant, of course!) And I realized that I overlooked or forgot a couple of things:

misplaced toilets (literally no one could pee!)

decided a well is definitely needed on the lot (after all, fetching water from the village well is beneath the likes of this gentry family — also, Kaylynn would collapse from all that labour).

had issues creating certain family ties

the list goes on...

#sims 2 #ts2 #ts2 medieval #sims 2 medieval #playtesting

[sahonithereadwolf]

Update on the patreon! Playtesting for my Anticolonial Pulp Adventure RPG "Protect The Sacred" is here! At least for patrons. Also take a look at the WIP character sheet that we've been working on. (I'm kinda proud of it)

#indie ttrpg #ttrpg #game design #protect the sacred rpg #patreon #playtesting