{"id":732,"date":"2021-04-12T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-12T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brown-sheep-511001.hostingersite.com\/carla\/?p=732"},"modified":"2021-04-14T21:18:13","modified_gmt":"2021-04-14T21:18:13","slug":"breaking-your-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/2021\/04\/12\/breaking-your-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking Your Game"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Playtesting is the most important part of game design. Making the prototype is vital, sure, but so much depends on how you playtest. Being deliberate and getting the right playtesters can turn a good game into a great one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ve talked about playtesting in a variety of interviews, and I recently wrote an entire post about <a href=\"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/2021\/02\/25\/playtesting-goals\/\" data-type=\"URL\" data-id=\"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/2021\/02\/25\/playtesting-goals\/\">Playtesting Goals. <\/a>Having playtesting goals in mind means that you organize the right playtesters and pay attention to the correct things when you playtest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In that blog, I talked about a variety of goals for your playtests:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Determining if the game is fun<\/li><li>Figuring out if the game is thematic enough <\/li><li>Varying player counts for balance and fun<\/li><li>Ensuring different strategies are viable<\/li><li>Checking game balance <\/li><li>Making sure the game has the right end condition(s) <\/li><li>Verifying the game fits its audience <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite all of these goals, one subject I didn&#8217;t strictly talk about is breaking your game or identifying when your game breaks down. It can happen during a few of these types of tests, but I wanted to dive deeper here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Focusing on breaking your game shouldn&#8217;t happen until you have a pretty solid and fun game. It can be disheartening to have your game break, even in the best of conditions, so you&#8217;ll want to be confident enough in it that you&#8217;ll be able to keep working on it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, when you&#8217;re trying to break your game, you&#8217;ll want to have experienced playtesters who will tell you the truth and be able to deal with the game if it reaches a weird or miserable place. This usually means getting game designers to playtest your game and telling them ahead of time that you want to see if they can break it. You don&#8217;t want your playtesters to have an unexpectedly bad experience that makes them never want to playtest again (or at least, never playtest <em>for you<\/em> again), so make sure your playtesters are prepared for the game to potentially break. Prototyping conventions are a great place to find experienced playtesters who understand the importance of trying to break the game and who will know what to expect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/totemic-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-857\" srcset=\"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/totemic-1.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/totemic-1-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/totemic-1-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption>Playtesting at ProtoATL<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Breaking your game is about testing all of the edge-case scenarios and seeing if anything can cause someone to get into a non-reversible situation or allow a player to win in an unexpected way. You never want the best way to win the game to be a way that isn&#8217;t fun or for the game to drag on for an unexpected period of time. Keep in mind that you&#8217;re not going to be as focused on fun or regular play, and that&#8217;s fine! Remember: the game should already be fun, and the basic gameplay should function fairly well if you&#8217;re doing this kind of testing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When you&#8217;re trying to break your game, you should think about the following things:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Is there a way to rush the end game?<\/li><li>Is there a way to cause the game to NEVER end? (Or to make the game go on for a <em><strong>really<\/strong><\/em> long time?) <\/li><li>Is there a way to get stuck without anything to do (such as running out of resources and being unable to get more)?<\/li><li>Is there a way to get into an endless loop?<\/li><li>Does the game get weird at any particular player counts? Are there any effects that are multiplied by the number of players and can cause issues?<\/li><li>Is there one strategy that always wins?<\/li><li>Does the player order greatly affect the odds of winning? For example, does the first player win 75% of the time?<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>For instance, when I was playtesting Stellar Leap, I had a player that would do seemingly random things. In one session he stranded himself in the middle of nowhere, unable to do anything for the rest of the game. This led me to add a new type of action that would simply give you resources of your choice. Now, if someone doesn&#8217;t think out their actions or gets really unlucky (dice can be mean sometimes&#8230;), they&#8217;re not out of the game! And all it took was a simple action option.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then there&#8217;s Kingdoms of the Deep, a simultaneous action selection game that ends when the reset action is used a specific number of times. Players typically play 3-5 cards, then use the reset action to get all of their actions back, making the game length semi-predictable. But what would happen if a player played the reset action every turn? They&#8217;d lose, of course, and the game would be over very quickly! However, if there <em>was<\/em> a way to win with this strategy, it would ruin the game for everyone else and require a fix. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Keep in mind that an important part of the process is being okay with your game breaking and figuring out what the best options are to fix any issues you find. The solution could be simple or could require a lot of overhaul to your game design, it&#8217;s really dependent on the issue(s) and how pervasive it is. After all, if you don&#8217;t find the ways your game can break, someone else will when your game releases&#8230; when it&#8217;s much harder (or impossible) to fix it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"block-2cef37d2-c1c6-4b08-8c43-1dbb81a1bb8f\">Did you enjoy this entry? Have you had experiences trying to break your own game? Please let me know! I\u2019d love to hear what you think and what kind of things you\u2019d like to see from this blog. Feel free to send me an&nbsp;<a href=\"mailto:contact@weirdgiraffegames.com\">email<\/a>&nbsp;or comment with your thoughts!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"block-f4a553ad-0fcc-4e38-8d00-1ab8e4280aee\">Don\u2019t forget to sign up for my mailing list, so you don\u2019t miss a post:&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/tinyletter.com\/carlakopp\">https:\/\/tinyletter.com\/carlakopp<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Playtesting is the most important part of game design. Making the prototype is vital, sure, but so much depends on how you playtest. Being deliberate&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":856,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_4766012646_4766012646":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":false,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"","_twitter_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type":"","_pinterest_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"","_medium_share_type":"","_threads_share_type":"","_google_business_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"today","timeOption":"now","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":"absolute"},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[2,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-design","category-publishing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/breaking-your-game.png","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":654,"url":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/2021\/12\/27\/common-designer-pitfalls\/","url_meta":{"origin":732,"position":0},"title":"Common Designer Pitfalls","author":"Carla","date":"December 27, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"There are a few things that designers might run into when they start working on games. These issues can plague any designer, but the first step to making sure you don't allow them to get in your way is knowing that they exist in the first place. Be wary of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Game Design&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Game Design","link":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/category\/design\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/common-designer-pitfalls-1.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/common-designer-pitfalls-1.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/common-designer-pitfalls-1.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/common-designer-pitfalls-1.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/common-designer-pitfalls-1.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":661,"url":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/2021\/02\/25\/playtesting-goals\/","url_meta":{"origin":732,"position":1},"title":"Playtesting Goals","author":"Carla","date":"February 25, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"One way to make your playtests really valuable is by setting goals before you start. Giving yourself a direction and something to pay particular attention to means you'll have a better idea of who to playtest with, how to prepare them for the playtest, and what questions to ask them\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Game Design&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Game Design","link":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/category\/design\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/playtesting-goals.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/playtesting-goals.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/playtesting-goals.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/playtesting-goals.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/playtesting-goals.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":515,"url":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/2020\/12\/07\/organized-game-design-with-annamaria-jackson-phelps\/","url_meta":{"origin":732,"position":2},"title":"Organized Game Design with AnnaMaria Jackson-Phelps","author":"Carla","date":"December 7, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"AnnaMaria has designed Synchronized, HEAP, and Net Fishing, she is the social media manager for Pencil First Games, and is a content creator at Girl's Game Shelf. Watch the live chat below: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=OzaDsGS8gXc&t Staying Organized in a Pandemic There are so many online resources out there! Before the pandemic, we\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Game Design&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Game Design","link":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/category\/design\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/annamaria.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/annamaria.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/annamaria.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/annamaria.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/annamaria.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":212,"url":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/2020\/04\/28\/working-on-multiple-games-at-once\/","url_meta":{"origin":732,"position":3},"title":"Working on Multiple Games at Once","author":"Carla","date":"April 28, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Most designers start with one game, then eventually start working on two games at once. Some designers even move on to having 5+ in progress at the same time! There's several great reasons why you should work on more than one game at one time. You can playtest based on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Game Design&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Game Design","link":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/category\/design\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Slide4.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Slide4.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Slide4.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Slide4.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Slide4.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":926,"url":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/2021\/05\/04\/getting-started-and-pressing-forward-with-game-design-with-raven-mckenzie\/","url_meta":{"origin":732,"position":4},"title":"Getting Started and Pressing Forward with Game Design with Raven McKenzie","author":"Carla","date":"May 4, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Raven is a game designer and is on the Unpub Leadership team. You can watch the interview below: https:\/\/youtu.be\/86X111LdJVA When Raven started with game design, she armed herself with notecards, notebooks, and an idea of what she wanted to do. Her first game design was Macaroon Mania and she initially\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Game Design&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Game Design","link":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/category\/design\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/raven-2-1.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/raven-2-1.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/raven-2-1.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/raven-2-1.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/raven-2-1.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":580,"url":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/2021\/01\/11\/an-introduction-to-designing-and-publishing\/","url_meta":{"origin":732,"position":5},"title":"An Introduction to Designing and Publishing","author":"Carla","date":"January 11, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"When you're a game designer, you have a big choice to make if you want your game published: do you want to pitch the game to a publisher, or do you want to self-publish? Keep in mind that nothing is forcing you to go down either path with each of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Game Design&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Game Design","link":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/category\/design\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/intro-design-and-publishing.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/intro-design-and-publishing.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/intro-design-and-publishing.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/intro-design-and-publishing.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/intro-design-and-publishing.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=732"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":919,"href":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732\/revisions\/919"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}