11 - Digital Testing

Not only during a pandemic is it advantageous to have a prototype available in digital form. Sending out multiple physical prototypes is laborious and time-consuming.

One of the first prototypes for Tabletop Simulator looked like this and was uploaded to the Steam Workshop. You'll now find a current version there, which anyone with Tabletop Simulator can play.

Digitally, a game like this can be updated much faster than a physical version. Even creating it is significantly easier than you might expect—especially card games, which are very easy to import. Tabletop Simulator offers a wide range of components, to which you simply assign an image. Some components are a bit more complex. Magical Friends, for instance, features a lot of creature standees. Making these enjoyable to use required a lot of consideration in the physical version. In Tabletop Simulator, there are containers and scripts for this. With scripts, you can solve many problems and even simplify things compared to a physical prototype. You just need to read up a bit or get some help (but the effort isn't too great).

However, Tabletop Simulator has one drawback: it's not free. This paywall unfortunately discourages many testers. Still, it's already used by a huge number of players, so you do end up with a large pool of potential testers.

There are also free platforms like Tabletopia. However, their features are very limited, and it's hard to include more complex components since there's no scripting option. I definitely plan to take a closer look at Tabletopia in the future. It’s evolving quite a bit.

One feature of Tabletop Simulator I’d like to highlight: you can include a tablet as a component, which allows you to use a browser directly within the game. That way, I can launch a website by default through which I can communicate with testers—without needing to change the game version.

Leave us a comment about what you think of this idea and about Tabletop Simulator in general. Of course, we’d also love it if you try out our game and leave us feedback.

What has your experience been like with tasks like these? Do you work in this field? I'm looking forward to your comments!