Playtesting Was Just Playing It Yourself A Lot

14. Playtesting Was Just... Playing It Yourself, A Lot

There wasn't budget for dedicated QA/playtest teams on most small projects. The designer/programmer was the tester, often hundreds of times per level, which created an intense personal feedback loop but also a blind spot for "this feels normal to me because I'm an expert on my own game."

Rule of thumb (with the obsolete part flagged): Obsolete — don't skip external playtesting; this is one piece of old wisdom that modern practice correctly fixed. But the underlying discipline — play your own build obsessively before showing anyone else — is still worth keeping.