It's week 4 of our project. You should have your rules and prototype ready to go. This week you will be play testing your game at home with your family or maybe via Zoom or some other digital face to face contact.
In this starting phase of play testing, you will be teaching the game to your players. It is important to take notes of any issues you find in the game play as it is played. Each time you play, make adjustments to your rules or components as needed before you play again, not during the game. You will want to play many times and will likely have a lot of changes over the course of the week. Try to keep your play testing group to a core of people willing to play at this basic level. Choose people who will be patient with the process and give you good constructive criticism. You will want to have others in your network to play your game next week when it is more refined.
If you write the rule changes as you go you will make your life much easier for next week. Type them up to make the process even quicker. It will be very important to have well written rules.
Keep in mind as you play your game that the people playing want to help. They will tell you what they don't like about your game. That is what you want. Without constructive criticism you will not be able to edit your game into a board game gem. You should try to stay true to your theme and style while accepting critiques though. In play testing Steorra, the kiddo got a lot of feedback that led to changes. He did get some feedback from one person that the game should have more player interaction. He understood where this person was coming from, but felt that the change would greatly change the game play and was going in a different direction than he intended. He did not adjust for that one. Your game will not be able to give everyone everything they want without being a total mess. So be clear with yourself about the end goal you are shooting for when processing the feedback you receive.
Homework
Play, adjust, play, adjust, play, adjust...
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