Over the years, I have played a lot of strange little filler games and a lot of silly card cards. I happen to be a big fan of Fluxx, as well a lover of Advanced Civilization. However, We Didn’t Playtest This At All might take the cake for the lightest, most random game I have ever played.
If you want a game that requires almost no time to play and takes almost no thought whatsoever, a game you could play while standing in line at the movies, this is the game that you have been looking for.
Playtest (since I am not going to type out We Didn’t Playtest This At All over and over again, even if I could just use cut and paste) consists of a slender deck of cards. The cards are plain, slightly thin, white cards. They don’t have any illustrations, although some of the ‘extra special’ cards have stars on their backs which means people will know when you get them. The cards also have cute little comments on the bottom, which I think are actually pretty funny.
The game plays from two to around eight. Honestly, the upper number is a little fuzzy. I am sure you could cram more people into the game if you really felt like it. You shuffle the deck, deal out two cards to each player and you’re ready to go. On your turn, you draw a card and you play a card. That’s it. The game ends when someone wins, everyone but one person loses, everyone loses or when everyone wins. Yes, those are all possibilities.
Unlike Fluxx, Playtest does not have formal categories like rules or goals. The cards are all over the place. There are cards like “You win if you’re the only one wearing blue” or “Draw extra cards” or “An opponent gets eaten by a dragon and loses” or “You lose. 755
Really.” There’s a whole deck full of this stuff. Trust me, I’m not even giving you a real taste.
Yeah, if you take the time, you could chart out how the cards work and categorize them but it’s really not that kind of game. If you’re planning on doing that, just stop. If you’re seriously thinking about that, you are not this game’s demographic. Just stop before you hurt yourself.
In case you haven’t figured it out yet, Playtest doesn’t have a theme per se. You have arrows and kittens and dragons and black holes, as well as games of Rock, Paper, Scissors thrown in. What Playtest really feels like, and the funny little quotes help, is having a conversation at a gaming convention.
As a Looney Labs fan and a guy who has played a lot of Fluxx, I have to address the inevitable comparison between the two games. They’re honestly not as much alike as they look. Fluxx, with its different categories of cards and built in balances to its goals, is actually a much more balanced and structured game. Playtest is actually a lot more like getting a hold of someone else’s copy of 1000 Blank White Cards. In fact, I honestly believe that’s how <PERSON> developed the game.
So, with all that said and done, what’s the game like and what do I think of it? Playtest is fast, wild and random. Sweet Cthulhu, is it fast wild and random! A game can easily last less than two minutes. I’ve seen games end before I even had a chance to play. Yes, that can happen with the right combination of cards in Fluxx but there are a lot of one card plays that can win you Playtest. The game bounces all over the place.
Now, do I have a problem with that? If I had a problem with that, why on Earth would I have bought a game called “We Didn’t Playtest This At All”? It’s a silly, random game! That’s the point! For a game to play while waiting at a restaurant or waiting in line at a convention or stuck at an airport terminal, Playtest is perfect. If unstructured silliness sounds good to you, this game will be good to you. 504