Playtest Survey Questions That Get Useful Feedback

Good playtest survey questions are the difference between "it's fun, I guess" and a list of things you can fix by Friday. Below you'll find the rules that keep questions honest, six questions worth asking after every session, a question bank sorted by what you're trying to learn, a ready-to-use 10-question survey, and how to make sense of the answers once they come in.

Start with what you need to learn, not with questions

Before writing a single question, write down two or three things you need to know about this build. Games User Research calls these research objectives, and they're different from the questions you ask. "Is the difficulty right?" is an objective. You'd never ask a player that directly.

Good objectives for a typical indie round look like:

• Do new players understand how to start their first run without help?
• Is the second boss too hard for people who enjoy the genre?
• Does the demo make people want more, and where does it lose them?

Every question in your survey should serve one of these. If a question doesn't, cut it.

Also decide whether a survey is even the right tool. Surveys are good at measuring opinions and simple behaviour ("how easy or difficult was this level?"). They're weak at explaining why something happened ("why did players take 20 tries on the bridge?"). For that you need to watch people play, which is why the best rounds pair a short survey with observation or recorded play.

Rules for writing playtest questions that don't lie to you

These come from Games User Research, PlaytestCloud's research team and Schell Games, and they hold up across every genre.

1. Keep it short. Five to ten questions is the sweet spot. Long surveys get rushed answers at the end.
2. Go from broad to specific. Ask how the game felt overall before you ask about the jetpack. Otherwise your specific questions color the overall rating.
3. Phrase both directions. "How easy or difficult was the puzzle?" instead of "How difficult was the puzzle?" The second one plants the idea that it was hard.
4. Pair ratings with "why". A 3 out of 7 tells you there's a problem. "Please explain your answer" tells you what it is.
5. Use balanced scales. PlaytestCloud uses seven-point scales with a neutral middle and negative and positive sides (for example "very unenjoyable" to "very enjoyable"). That lets you score answers from -3 to +3 and compare rounds.
6. Avoid yes/no. It forces a strong answer where most players feel "kind of". A scale or an open question gives room for nuance.
7. Never ask about future behaviour. "Would you buy this?" correlates poorly with what people actually do. Ask about what they've done: "What was the last game like this you bought?"
8. Use the player's words, not yours. "DPS", "FTUE" and "meta progression" mean nothing to a lot of players.
9. Pilot it. Have one person fill it out while you sit next to them and ask what they think each question means. You'll catch confusing wording in five minutes.

The six questions to ask after every playtest

Schell Games' guide to playtest questions boils post-session questions down to six open questions that work for almost any game. They're easy to remember as Frustrating, Favorite, Wanted, Wand, Doing, Describe:

1. What was the most frustrating moment or aspect of what you just played?
2. What was your favorite moment or aspect of what you just played?
3. Was there anything you wanted to do that you couldn't?
4. If you had a magic wand and could change, add or remove anything, what would it be?
5. What were you doing in the experience? (This one reveals whether they understood the goal.)
6. How would you describe this game to your friends and family? (This tells you what your game is in players' heads, which is gold for your store page.)

If you only have room for a handful of questions, these six cover a lot of ground.

Playtest survey question bank, by goal

Pick the sections that match your objectives. Don't use them all. Where you see a scale, use a seven-point scale from the negative end to the positive end unless noted.

First impressions and onboarding

• In your own words, what is the goal of this game?
• How easy or difficult was it to figure out what to do in the first five minutes? (Very difficult to very easy, then "Please explain")
• Was there a moment early on where you felt lost? What were you trying to do?
• Which part of the tutorial, if any, did you skip or skim?
• What did you expect the game to be before you started? How did it compare?

Controls, menus and UI

PlaytestCloud's usability questions use agree/disagree statements. Ask players how much they agree with each one:

• The menus were easy to navigate.
• I was always able to find what I was looking for in the game's menus.
• I always understood what the icons and symbols in the game meant.
• The game's controls needed to be adjusted to my own preferences.
• I was able to adjust the game's controls to my own preferences.

Follow with an open question: "Was there any button, icon or menu that confused you? Which one?"

Difficulty and pacing

• How easy or difficult was [specific level, boss or puzzle]? (Use "much too easy, too easy, just right, too hard, much too hard" here, since the middle is the goal.)
• Was there a point where you felt stuck? Where, and for how long?
• Did any part feel too slow or too long? Which part?
• How many times did you fail [specific challenge] before you got past it?

Fun, engagement and drop-off

These frequency questions come from PlaytestCloud's general survey set, on a five-point scale from Never to Always:

• Did you ever feel frustrated while playing?
• Did you ever feel bored while playing?
• Did you ever feel that you wanted to stop playing?

Then:

• Overall, did you find the game enjoyable or unenjoyable? (Seven-point)
• If you weren't in a playtest, would you have continued playing after today's session? (Seven-point, "very unlikely" to "very likely". This is about today's session, not a future purchase.)
• What moment made you want to keep going?

Audience fit

• Is this a game that seems made "for you"? (Seven-point, "not at all for me" to "essential for me")
• If you weren't in a playtest, would you have chosen to play this game?
• What games have you played most in the last three months?
• Which game does this remind you of most?

Audience fit questions help you separate "this game has a problem" from "this player isn't my audience". A low score from someone who only plays sports games means something very different from a low score from a fan of your genre.

Story, world and art

• Describe the main character in a sentence.
• Was there anything about the story or world you didn't understand?
• How would you describe the art style to a friend?
• Did the music and sound help or get in the way? When?

Bugs and technical details

• What did you play on? (PC, Mac, Steam Deck, phone, browser; controller or keyboard)
• Did you see any bugs, crashes or visual glitches? What were you doing when it happened?
• Did the game run smoothly for you? (Seven-point, then "Where did it stutter?")
• Which build version did you play? (Pre-fill this if you can.)

Demo and store-page questions

If you're testing a demo before a festival or launch, add:

• Before playing, what did you think this game was from its page or trailer?
• At what point in the demo did you decide whether you liked it?
• Where did you stop, and why?
• What would you tell someone who's deciding whether to try this demo?

A ready-to-use 10-question playtest survey

Copy this, swap in your game's specifics, and you have a solid post-session survey for a 20 to 40 minute build.

1. What did you play on? (Multiple choice: PC with keyboard, PC with controller, Steam Deck, Mac, phone, browser)
2. Overall, did you find the game enjoyable or unenjoyable? (Seven-point scale)
3. Please explain your answer. (Paragraph)
4. In your own words, what were you trying to do in the game? (Paragraph)
5. How easy or difficult was it to figure out what to do in the first five minutes? (Seven-point scale)
6. What was the most frustrating moment? (Paragraph)
7. What was your favorite moment? (Paragraph)
8. Was there anything you wanted to do that you couldn't? (Paragraph)
9. Is this a game that seems made "for you"? (Seven-point scale)
10. Did you see any bugs or crashes? What were you doing when they happened? (Paragraph)

Notice what's missing: "Is it fun?", "Would you buy it?" and "Any other thoughts?". The first two give you unreliable answers. The third is fine as an optional last question, but it shouldn't be doing the heavy lifting.

Building the survey in Google Forms

Games User Research recommends Google Forms for most playtest surveys because it's free and handles simple logic. Here's a setup that works:

1. Create a new form and add your questions. Use "Linear scale" for ratings (set it to 1 to 7 and label both ends) and "Paragraph" for open questions.
2. Make the scale questions required and the open questions optional, except your one or two most important open questions.
3. Add a short-answer question for build version at the top. Use "Get pre-filled link" from the form's menu to create a link with the version already filled in, so every response is tagged with the build.
4. Turn on the option to link responses to a Google Sheet, so you can sort and tally answers.
5. Put the link where players will see it at the right moment: on your game's main menu, the pause screen, or the "thanks for playing" screen at the end of your build.

If players are reviewing your game on Get Playtests, put your top three questions right in your posting's description. Reviewers can then answer them directly in their written, video or livestream review, so you get answers to your questions instead of a generic impression.

Questions to ask while you watch someone play

Surveys catch what players remember. Watching catches what actually happened. If you can sit in, join a call, or watch a video review, use prompts that don't lead:

• "What are you thinking right now?" (When they go quiet.)
• "What do you expect that to do?" (Before they press an unfamiliar button.)
• "What are you trying to do?" (When they wander.)
• "What could have helped you there?" (After a struggle. Schell Games suggests this kind of phrasing over "Did you not understand the hint?")

And the most important rule: don't help. Every time you explain something, you've lost the chance to learn that it needs explaining.

Reading the answers

Once responses are in:

1. Clean the data first. Games User Research suggests checking how long people took and removing responses that were clearly rushed, like someone who rated every question the same.
2. Separate your audience. Split answers by your audience-fit question. Feedback from players in your genre deserves more weight.
3. Look for patterns, not loud voices. If three of five players mention the same confusing moment, that's your top fix. One player's strong opinion is a note, not a plan.
4. Trust behaviour over opinion. If players say the tutorial was clear but four of them got stuck on the same door, the door wins.
5. Track the same questions across rounds. Keep your core questions identical between builds so you can see whether a fix moved the numbers.
6. Write down what you'll change. End each round with a short list: the problem, the evidence, the fix, and how you'll check it next round.

Common mistakes with playtest surveys

• Asking "Was it fun?" Players are polite. Ask about specific moments instead.
• Leading questions. "How annoying was the inventory?" assumes it was annoying.
• Testing on the wrong people. Games User Research warns that a survey filled out by whoever happened to be around tells you about them, not your players. Our guide to finding playtesters covers how to reach the right ones.
• Changing every question every round. You lose the ability to compare.
• Survey only, no observation. You'll know what players felt but not why.

Great questions only pay off when the right players answer them. Post your game on Get Playtests for free, no credit card needed, add your top questions to the description, and let players who picked your game tell you what's working. More playtesting guides are in our guides section.