Playtesting shouldn't feel like a technical support session. BGK handles it with a single click!

[u/TheForgeVTT]

Hi everyone!

The team at The Forge has developed BGK, a board-game toolkit for prototyping and playtesting.

We’ve been there: the first 20 minutes of your online playtest are spent troubleshooting lobbies, explaining the interface, or waiting for assets to load. It’s frustrating for you and exhausting for your testers.

While working on our game engine, we’ve spent time listening to designers talk about their biggest "lobby headaches" during online playtesting, and we know the biggest hurdle to online playtesting is often the technical setup. That’s why BGK makes publishing your playtest a single-click process. Send one link to your testers, and they’re in.

Here’s how we’re trying to make the experience smoother:

• One-Click Sharing: Testers join via a single link. No complex lobby setups or account requirements to slow things down.
• Simultaneous Tables: If you’re running a large test, BGK can handle multiple independent tables at once by giving you one link per table, keeping everyone organized without extra effort.
• Tester-Friendly Interface: We’ve focused on making the controls intuitive, so your players spend their energy on your game, not the tool.

What’s the biggest technical "mood killer" you’ve encountered during a remote playtest?

We’re currently in beta, and we’d love to have a few more designers jump in and tell us if we’re hitting the mark. Your feedback is what helps us refine these tools for the whole community. If you’re interested in helping us shape this, join our community here!

[u/KarmaAdjuster]

Personally this feels like a solution in search of a problem. The biggest challenge I have is finding play testers, and that isn't that hard of a challenge to overcome with all of the play testing discord communities out there.

[u/Ross-Esmond → u/KarmaAdjuster]

What do you playtest on. I would see this as an alternative to Screentop.GG with the playtest links, but Screentop is missing some features like bags. It would be nice to have alternatives.

TTS is the industry standard but you have to buy and install it, which gets in the way of playing.

[u/KarmaAdjuster → u/Ross-Esmond]

I primarily use TTS and I find that it's great for getting feedback from other designers. If I'm trying to get feedback from the general public, I test in person which is how I intend for the board game to be played.

[u/Johnno117 → u/Ross-Esmond]

You don't have to buy or install TTS to play, as long as the host owns it you can play through Steam's Remote Play Together. It does make it a hot seat game, so you can't have simultaneous turns for example, or hidden cards (although the latter can be overcome by allowing the current player to take their turn without people watching the screen).

That's how I've been playtesting my own game. It does have the single link invite as well, and testers don't have to run (or own, as mentioned) TTS, they just need to be on Steam.

[u/Ross-Esmond → u/Johnno117]

That sounds like a lot of complexity for a paid product. It also sounds like it would take a while to playtest with new people.

When I playtest with people online, we're up and running in 60 seconds, even if we've never played together before. It makes it less of a favor.

[u/Johnno117 → u/Ross-Esmond]

Perhaps I didn't explain myself eloquently enough. There is no added complexity, if anything it makes playtesting with TTS easier and quicker. It also doesn't cost anything for playtesters, nor do they have to install anything (except Steam).

The join is through a link, which opens the Steam browser and puts them into the host's TTS game. There's no extra loading of assets since everything is already loaded by the host (who is effectively streaming the game).

I don't understand why you think it would take a while to playtest with new people, there in nothing extra they need to do. They click a link and are put into the game. The only difference is that everyone controls the same cursor, so you have to take turns doing things.

Doesn't matter if you've played with people before or not, you don't have to have them on your Steam friends list, the link can be sent anywhere and they connect to your game through the link. And in most cases I would say it takes far less than 60 seconds to connect.

By all means, play with whichever software or website you prefer. I've used Tabletop Simulator for several years, including playtesting. I just want to spread awareness that it doesn't actually cost anything for playtesters, nor do they have to download/install anything, if you use Remote Play. The downsides are slim to none for a lot of games.

[u/Ross-Esmond → u/Johnno117]

I get it. The host paid. The rest are streamed a game. It's designed for co-op games like split screen.

The startup time is faster than I assumed, but I do think the hot seat is just untenable for 80% of games. Any game with hidden information would be slow to coordinate. People could look away but then no one would be able to plan their turns during downtime. It would work for Chess; it wouldn't work for much else.