-
First, I try to always have a ‘reference card’ where if I forget how words work, I can just look at the card and know important things about setup, what people can do on their turn, how the game ends, and how the winner is determined. I use this as a history of what I’ve tried, as well, as my memory isn’t the best anymore.
I also make notes on how to teach a game, just like I take playtesting notes and also make sure to think about that before and after the playtest. I make sure to say what phrases and orders worked better or made people ask more questions.
For instance, there was this one game I had that kept getting really weird feedback and that was all due to the way it was taught and what it looked like. I did a number of playtests and I learned that if I said mid-weight and engine building a number of times during the teach, the feedback was so much better. I had apparently made it too cute looking or something, but making sure to track what words I used while teaching and the associated feedback made that something I could learn from.
