Throwback Thursday #3: First Playtesting Notes

Many of my friends have been instrumental in the development of Three Days on Callisto. They have been very generous with playtesting the game at various stages and contributing ideas. Especially my friend Sam, who is as interested in game strategy and design as I am. There have been many nights, particularly in the early design process, where he and I would sit down each with a pen, paper, and a beer and playtest the latest prototype. Our policy was to avoid blurting out ideas the moment they entered our heads, since this interrupted the flow of the game. Instead we would take notes as we played and then, after finishing either the game or our third beer, take turns sharing our thoughts. I found having a partner to both provide ideas and critique my own extremely useful.

Above are the earliest set of notes I have of this sort. We apparently were short on paper that night and just cut a single sheet in two. My notes are on the left, in green ink. Sam's are written in purple. I'll let you judge whose penmanship is sloppier, but I guess Sam has an excuse: he's a doctor. (The scribbling was probably added later by my son, who would have been almost two at the time.)

Anyway, these scraps serve as a reminder of how far the game has come along. Sam's notes are labelled "Early August 2014". Mine are undated, but it appears I added "1st notes on Callisto" some time after the fact, probably in an effort to organize what had become a rather unwieldy stack of papers. It's possible that at the time of this playtest we hadn't yet come up with the name "Callisto".