A record of a week of playtesting spent at the Halifax apartment

On Monday evening, I spread out 120 cards and three bags of tokens on the living room table and ran through a solo rehearsal. The goal was to check whether the narrative branches were working properly, but by the third round, the story tracking sheet was already a mess. When I play alone, I fill in the context mentally, so the flaws stay hidden. Yet another reminder that blind testing is the only real answer.

Tuesday, First Session

I invited three people I'd met at a local board game café over to my place. A pizza and a few bottles of sparkling water are always enough. I handed them a draft of the rulebook and sat in the corner taking notes. Seven minutes in, the first question came: "What does 'resolve' on this card mean, resolve what, exactly?" I'd thought it was obvious from context, but that was entirely my mistake. When a single term is ambiguous, players stop acting altogether. The most expensive mistake in board game design isn't a flashy mechanic. It's one unclear word.

Wednesday and Thursday

A couple with almost no board game experience came for the Wednesday session. This prototype belongs to the narrative-driven board game family, so it has a lot of story choices, and the couple actually enjoyed them. The problem was elsewhere. After reading the victory condition card, both of them asked, "So are we competing or cooperating?" A single card had failed to explain the fundamental structure of the game. I rewrote the victory condition card three times that night.

On Thursday, I called the same group back to run through the revised version. Much better, but the mid-game pacing noticeably dragged. The transition event from Act 2 to Act 3 was too passive. Tension holds up only when players have to make a decision, not just flip a card. That night I added a branching choice to the transition event.

Friday, When a Mistake Became a Masterpiece

The Friday session was the highlight of the week. The fifth playtester, someone I'd met at a Halifax Public Library game night, completely misread one of the rule cards. The instruction "reveal your betrayal token" was interpreted as "pass your betrayal token to another player." But that misreading triggered an unexpected alliance shift, and the entire table gasped. The story arc twisted into something like the double-cross structure of a film noir, and it actually became more dramatic.

I jotted that moment down in three lines in my notebook. Then on Saturday morning, I officially changed the betrayal token rule to "transferable." The misread rule made a better game than the intended one. This is exactly the kind of gem you can only discover through blind playtesting.

Saturday, Wrap-Up

Twenty-seven card text revisions, three token rule changes, one complete rewrite of the victory condition card. As I compiled the week's results into a spreadsheet, I realized this prototype needs at least three or four more weeks of testing before it's ready for a crowdfunding campaign. Still, that one moment on Friday, when a stranger's misreading transformed the entire story for the better, is reason enough to keep going. Next week, I'm expanding the table to five players.