Playtesting and Feedback

During community playtesting, any signed-in member can play the entries and tell the designers what they thought. It is the most useful thing you can do for them.

Playing an entry

Click Play on an entry card, or Play this entry on the entry's own page. A fresh table of the submitted version opens in a new tab. Nothing you do there changes the designer's game.

You need to be signed in to play. Signed-out visitors see Sign in to play instead.

Rating and feedback

Rating opens when community playtesting starts and closes when it ends. On the entry page:

Pick one to five stars.
Write your Feedback for the designer. It needs at least 20 characters, so say something they can act on: what worked, what confused you, what you would change.
Click Submit rating.

You get one rating per entry. Until community playtesting ends you can change it with Update rating or take it back with Remove my rating. You cannot rate your own entry.

Joined a table

If your account joined a table of that entry on DDD, your feedback shows a Joined a table badge. It tells the designer you actually sat down with the game. It does not show whether you finished a full game.

The community ranking

On a competition page, Community ranking lists the entries by their average rating, with the number of ratings beside each average. Entries nobody has rated yet show No ratings yet and sit at the bottom, so they are never mistaken for badly rated games.

Community ratings are feedback for the designers and a guide for players. Judges can read them, but they are never added to the judges' scores. The judges decide the finalists and the placements.

After playtesting ends

Ratings and feedback stay visible on each entry page after community playtesting closes, unless the organizer or a DDD admin hides a comment.

Reporting feedback

If a comment is abusive, spam, off topic or shares private information, click Report under it, choose a reason, add a note if it helps, and click Send report.

Reports go to the competition's organizer and to DDD admins. The comment stays up until one of them decides; reports never hide anything on their own. You can report a given comment once, and you cannot report your own.