Nick Bentley Makes Games

totally

I SUPER relate to that thought. I love writing and game design for similar reasons, and approach them in similar ways.

me too. my trajectory has been the same as yours.

indeed

nice! glad I could be helpful.

yeah, it's really really hard to get the right kind of feedback

heh, yeah it's too long. Apologies.

thanks!

couldn't agree more

thanks very much!

Woah this is really cool! Digging in this morning. Thanks for the tip.

Most people learn games from half-remembered rules, in a fugue of distractions: kids, TV, phones, or just enjoying each other’s company

And most finely tuned hobby games need to be played perfectly and optimally or they’re … a rough experience

Recalibrate

To protect against this, I:

1. rely on unguided testing
2. avoid participating as a player in many tests
3. keep my presence neutral and avoid commentary

🎲✂️(19/19)

Designers love games, are good at them, and want playtests to go well.

Without realizing it, they often add enthusiasm, clarity, and momentum that aren’t actually in the game itself.

🎲✂️(18/19)

Another Common Situated Experience: The Fun Buff

This may be even more common.

A *Fun Buff* is a player who consistently makes games more fun just by being there.

Often, the game's designer *is* a Fun Buff.

🎲✂️(17/19)

You can read more about split-testing here:

bsky.app/profile/nick...

🎲✂️(16/19)

The most reliable way I’ve found to counter this is split-testing.

In a split-test, players play two games back-to-back and then say which they prefer and why.

Direct comparison reduces interpretive charity and makes weaknesses harder to ignore.

🎲✂️(15/19)

A wider audience does the opposite. They expect the game to justify itself immediately.

So even when there aren't other hidden contextual dependencies, strong playtests predict market reception poorly.

Interpretive charity props up experiences that won’t survive first contact.

🎲✂️(14/19)

A common kind of situated experience: Interpretive Charity

Playtest groups don’t just share context; they share *interpretive charity.*

Early playtesters tend to:

- assume the game is worth understanding
- forgive rough edges
- try to infer the designer’s intent

🎲✂️(13/19)

To defend against such risks, I now try to catch situated experiences early.

One way I do that is by switching to unguided testing early in development - having players learn directly from the rulebook, without explanation - so I don’t accidentally supply context the game itself can’t.

🎲✂️(12/19)

It hasn’t gone to market yet, so this remains a premortem hypothesis.

But I’ve seen this kind of thing a bunch of times, both in others’ work and (painfully) my own.

So I suspect it’s a real possibility in this case too.

🎲✂️(11/19)

It’s possible that when company members teach the game, they also unintentionally teach the tempo.

The game itself doesn’t clearly signal that it should be played that fast.

Without that shared understanding, the game’s less fun.

🎲✂️(10/19)

I don’t know for certain why this happened, but one pattern stood out:

Inside the company, the game is played quickly.

In my groups, it’s played more slowly, and at that pace, the experience is dull.

🎲✂️(9/19)

I recently worked with a company that was excited about a prototype. Their playtests went great, and they suspected they had a hit.

When I tested the game with my own playtest groups - people squarely in the target market - the response was different. No one loved it. Most disliked it.

🎲✂️(8/19)

The magic depends on those conditions, but the final game can’t reproduce them.

When that happens, the designer hasn’t found a broken game. They’ve found a *situated experience* - one that works beautifully in one environment and falls apart outside it.

A possible example:

🎲✂️(7/19)

A game communicates what it is and how it should be played through things like its:

- title
- art
- marketing
- rules and how they’re written

The problem is early test groups often share unspoken assumptions and behaviors the designer doesn’t notice - because they’re always present.

🎲✂️(6/19)

For a game’s magic to travel, two things have to be true:

1. The game has magic.

2. The game can *carry* that magic outside the context in which it was discovered.

That second part is harder than it looks.

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There’s another common failure mode:

the designer didn’t just design a game, they designed an experience that only works in a particular social and contextual setting.

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The standard explanation is the playtesters’ tastes didn’t match the broader market, that the game was tuned to a niche. That’s often true. But...

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1. A designer creates a game that feels special.

2. That feeling reliably shows up in the designer’s playtest groups.

3. When the game reaches a wider audience, the magic disappears and the game is received poorly.

🎲✂️(2/19)