From Good to Great: Gamely Games founder Hazel Reynolds on pitching to playtesters

We were speaking recently, Hazel, and I thought how interesting your views on playtesting are. Now, we’ve spoken about this before; people can still read that here. But now your playtesting starts even earlier because you’re pitching games to playtesters that you’ve not even made… Is that right?
Yes. One of the earliest stages of our playtesting is sending out short pitches for our game ideas…

So not market research of packaging for a game? You actually pitch a suite of titles you’re considering?
Exactly. We usually send our ‘playtesting tribe’ a number of pitches. So for example, we recently sent out pitches for six different games – like an amazon paragraph, basically. We send people those and get them to rank them: in what order would you be most excited to play these games? We get people to rank the concepts. It’s always extremely helpful to get a feel for which games instantly attract people the most.

Got it – I love that!
It’s really helpful. It gives us a clear idea of what would appeal to people on amazon… And that might be different from what they actually end up enjoying playing the most! Because there’s a difference; those two things don’t always tally. Both factors are really important – we want to make games that instantly appeal to people, then follow through with the best game experience. The initial pitches and rankings help us decide which games to take through to the printable prototype stage.

Oh! This is even before a prototype exists?
Yes! We’ll make sure the game plays in principle, but this part of the process tells us which games to develop. So we’re not making printable prototypes for all six; we’re just making them for those that appeal the most. There’s always some discussion on the games ranked in the middle. It’s our job to work out whether those games really are less appealing, or whether we just haven’t got the pitch quite right.

This is just great! It’s very generous of you to share that Hazel, because – for some people – it will be groundbreaking.
Another core aspect of it, as things develop, is that we also ask people for the One-Star Review – which is your gift to us, Deej. We just love it!

Well, that’s very heartening! Thank you. For people that don’t know this technique, they can read about it here. And is there a filter that helps you work out which feedback to listen to?
Hmmm. There isn’t really a failsafe filter for this… Once we have all the raw feedback, there’s definitely more of an art than science to working out what changes to make. There’s a personal element to it and I do rely a lot on my own instinct and feeling for what will actually improve a game. However, I should say there’s a massive caveat to that…

Go on…
My initial instincts can definitely be wrong! In play testing, I try to actually test as many of the suggestions people make as possible. On several occasions, I’ve thought something wouldn’t work, then tried it… And loved it!

So you sometimes test against your gut instinct? To measure your thinking?
Yes – because my gut instinct can be wrong. I’ve often got quite a good idea in my head of how things will work. I’m imagining the interactions between players and how it might feel to do certain actions and different mechanics. But nothing beats testing! So if I’m not sure about something, and someone else thinks it’s a good idea, I’m quick to test it. It doesn’t need to be flash… Blank cards and a Sharpie are my best friends in testing. The more basic the prototype, the less precious you are with it and the happier you’ll be to rip up half of it and redesign it.

Great advice! And, out of interest, can you give me an example of that?
A good example is Six Second Scribbles. That originally only had three categories. I think they were animals, plants and objects. In each round, you got several cards from that round’s category. Everyone still had lots of things to draw quickly and the drawings got lots of giggles… But then my friend Dave asked if we could put a different category on every card.

Hilariously – and, in hindsight, perhaps embarrassingly – I wasn’t sure this would work. But we tested it and it worked so much better! That’s one example of when the nugget of the game was there, but it didn’t become brilliant until the testing process. It’s the refining, it’s the trying, it’s the being open to experimentation that elevated it.

And you and I have spoken before about taking ego out of the equation…
Yes. It might sound a bit cold, but I try not to get attached to any one idea, or doing an idea in a certain way, because I really believe this helps us make the best games we can. The more emotionally detached you become from game, the more you can take on good feedback. So I don’t see my games as being my babies. They’re more like weird science experiments!

Ha!
I think it’s helpful to be coming from a place in which you’re saying, “Oooh! Let’s see!” You’ve got to be open to options, and let things bubble up and take on a bit of a life of their own once they’re in playtesting.

Something else you’ve touched on relates to what I call ‘Interests and Positions’… The idea that the feedback someone gives you may not entirely represent what’s inside their head. You have thoughts on that?
That one person might say something that doesn’t sound useful – but actually, hidden behind it is a really useful insight?

Right. Someone might assume a position when they give you feedback: “Have you thought about doing this?” But maybe they’re not able to articulate their interest in that; the reason they thought that think or feel that way…
Well, yes – that absolutely happens. Sometimes it’s easy to dismiss what someone says because their wording doesn’t make sense… Or the solution they suggest is never going to work. But that doesn’t mean what they’re saying isn’t valuable; it doesn’t mean that the problem doesn’t exist. So it helps to ask a few questions to see if you can get to the root of why they made the suggestion in the first place.

Exactly. If they suggested something, they were offering a solution… Regardless of whether or not the solution works, the question is: what problem were they trying to fix?
Yes! Because behind the suggestion might be a really strong insight. And that insight could be super valuable and make your game much, much better. There must be a reason they made the suggestion. Maybe something about the game is making them feel a certain way, or they think something’s missing. So if you can get to the bottom of the insight, the why, then that could have a real impact.

Amazing. If you drill into why they offered a suggestion, you could find a real problem… And maybe you’ll have several other ways to solve the problem that are better than their suggestion.
Exactly. And one of those might be an idea that really does lift your game from good to great.

Perfect! We’ll wrap it up there because you’ve just suggested the headline! Ha! Thank you, Hazel. And in case people missed it, I’ll link to the other piece you did on playtesting again here. There are some great insights there as well. Thank you.

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