Making of

Playtests

A playtest is someone playing Drogas on their phone while the founders watch what happens. The game is still being shaped, so the most useful thing a player can do is say, at the moment it happens, what felt wrong, confusing or ugly.

Reporting from the page

Every page has a reporter built in. To use it on a phone:

1. Tap and hold on the spot you want to talk about, with one finger, for about a second and a half. A ring grows under your finger so you can tell it is working. On a computer, a middle-click does the same. 2. Let go. A small dialog opens, already pointing at whatever was under your finger. 3. Type what you saw or what you expected, then send it.

Holding on the thing itself matters: the report remembers which part of the page you pointed at, so "this button looks cut off" arrives with the button attached.

Visual feedback

Anything you can see counts: text that is hard to read, a button too small to hit, a picture that looks wrong, a layout that jumps, a colour that is hard on the eyes, a screen that feels empty or crowded. Hold on the thing and describe it in a few words. You do not need to say how to fix it.

If the spot you held was not quite the right one, the dialog has a Point at it chip: it steps aside for one tap on the page, then comes back pointing at that.

A report records the page, the size of your screen, what was pointed at and what the page was doing at that moment. It does not take a picture of your screen, so say in words what looked wrong.

Kinds of report

• Nit is the default for a tap and hold: something small that is off, such as a label, a spacing, a control in the wrong place.
• Bug is for something broken or not working. Pick it in the dialog and the report carries more detail about the page's state.
• Thought is for an idea or a question that points at nothing. Pick it in the dialog and write freely.

Reports made during a playtest are held for the founders to read before anything is done with them. Each one gets a number, and My reports in the dialog shows what happened to your own.