The “35-year old mom test” and what it means when playtesting your game.

Everyone knows you should playtest your games to get feedback and iterate on them. That much is obvious. What isn’t as widely known it seems, is who you should be playtesting with and why. Enter the “35 year old mom” test.

When I was working on my first game with Nintendo (Mario vs DK2: March of the Minis) we were about 5 months in, and it came time to playtest the game. We asked people on the team if they had friends or family that would be willing to come playtest. I started naming of other gamer friends I knew, and my boss said “Nope these are useless”. I was surprised of course, I didn’t know any better. I was like “Oh, do we need kids then since this is aimed at younger audiences”. She said “Nope, that’s even worse.” I was extremely confused. So I of course asked for an explanation.

I was told that kids are too smart, and will figure anything out. Kids are some of the best natural learners and will look past bad UX or rough designed levels. They are just happy to get to spend their time playing a game, so the feedback will not be genuine. Gamers are similar, they will power through it and figure out ways to enjoy the game as well. “Anything they would point out, we should be able to find ourselves” she said. Instead, we need 35 year old moms who don’t play video games. We make games for everyone and they will quickly expose the confusing parts of your game and what could be taught better, and won’t hide their frustrations about it.

It took me by surprise, but she was right. Those playtests really highlighted parts of the game that were confusing in the first view levels, and they dramatically improved our onboarding and first few levels. It really worked, and I’ve remembered that lesson ever since.

Fast forward, I was the lead on Leagues updated tutorial we did like 6 years ago. I remember working with the younger designer on the project, explaining why we needed a pop up message explaining how to right click to move. He was shocked saying “no one would need to know that, I was going too basic”. Fast forward to our playtest, and 10/10 testers immediately burned heal because they went to WASD, and 8/10 of them needed that pop up. The method continued to serve me well even on a deep game like League of Legends.

Even if you can’t actually find people like this for your playtest, a good designer should really be able to empathize with their experience. Think about someone whos first video game might be your project. What might they struggle with? How can you make their experience a positive one by making your game more intuitive. You’ll be shocked how much you can learn approaching it from that angle, as usually designers are too smart for their own good.

On a final note, when I was introduced to the “35 year old mom test” I was 22. Now I’m 40. I’m going to go become dust now. Have a good Friday, and take it easy 🙂