A write-up of designer Brian Cronin’s GDC 2026 talk, “Playtesting Process for Ultra Small Teams.” His case: the format every team should use is one designer, one playtester, and a live video call on a running build. It costs nothing, and it answers the questions surveys cannot.
Why the format wins:
- The setup — a synchronous call, the designer runs the build, primes the tester for useful feedback, and notes pain points, confusion, and emotional reactions as they happen
- It’s effectively free — no tooling, no recruiting pipeline, no budget: just one hour of the designer’s attention
- Emotional impact is the superpower — watching someone play and hearing the “little subtle things” and body language is the best way to tell whether the game is having the impact you want
- The core premise — “Devs are bad at knowing if their game is fun, often… Things that I think are super obvious are not!”
- Patterns repeat — run enough sessions and the same confusion keeps surfacing: “It’s never a them problem, it’s always a me problem”
- Testers become community — about 70% of the Discord for his current game are playtesters, and some keep coming back to play more
- Process the feedback systematically — a tracking spreadsheet, prioritized action items, and actually shipping the high-level fixes; a few good sessions alone change nothing
- Respect the gift — “Time and attention are the most valuable resource on earth right now,” so acknowledge testers up front, avoid defensive language, and prime them for honest answers
The takeaway scales down to a solo dev: the cost is an hour of your time, and the return is ground truth on whether the game is fun and understandable — plus, handled well, the start of a community.