Playtesting
You decide when a change gets playtested. After a change to how the game plays, Maestro offers a playtest; nothing is played on your behalf unless you choose it or turn on Auto Playtest.
Worth a playtest?
When a specialist changes how the game plays, Maestro adds a compact card under its answer with up to three things worth trying, each about a minute.
- I’ll try it: you play the game yourself with the checklist, then tell the Crew what you found.
- Playtester: it runs the game, checks those things, and fixes what it can reproduce. The card shows roughly how long it takes; a playtest uses credits.
- Not now: no playtest. Ignoring the card also means no test.
Auto Playtest
Auto Playtest is an Auto-Approve category, off by default; turn it on there. Then the Playtester goes straight away instead of the card appearing. It works only while Auto-Approve is on, and each playtest takes a few minutes and uses credits.
Ask for a playtest any time
You can always ask directly, for example to reproduce a bug or check a mechanic. Then the Playtester runs the engine’s project validation first, plays the game, reads what actually happened, finds the root cause, makes the minimal fix, and plays again to confirm.
What specialists check on their own
Builder, Juicer and Systems Smith check their own work, and list what is worth trying in play. Maestro relays every caveat a specialist left open, so you know what was and was not checked.
Available evidence
- Run, pause and stop the game, or a target scene, through the engine integration.
- Traces, watches, signals, logs, screenshots and selected runtime values.
- Filmstrips: a series of frames for reviewing motion.
- Input used to exercise a specific condition.
- Runtime errors the game left behind after a run.
Unity and Godot differ
In Unity, the game runs in Play Mode inside your editor. In Godot, the game runs in its own window and EngineForge watches it while it plays. What can be checked differs a little between the two engines.
Not reproduced is a valid result
When a reported behavior cannot be reproduced with valid observed evidence, the right outcome is to say so and make no change rather than inventing a fix.
Limitations
A playtest checks specific behavior. It is not a full QA pass and does not establish game feel, visual quality, accessibility, performance across devices, or every edge case. You decide whether the evidence is enough.