Playtesters won’t tell you everything

When you have a seemingly simple game and a playtester doesn’t understand something, there’s a good chance he or she won’t say it (or isn’t even aware of it). This might not always be a big problem, but it can cause issues to keep persisting without a clear explanation why. Keep asking why and try to find the root of the problem.

With Circles, this specifically happened on a level where people kept dying and I couldn’t understand why. Players understood they couldn’t touch circles on the first few levels, but then progressed to the next level and seemingly forgot about it. It wasn’t that much of a problem, most of of them would would continue without a problem. But when I asked about it, I didn’t really get an explanation. Until at one point one player told me he died because he wanted to touch a circle in order to collect it. It was blue instead of the regular red and seemed like a pickup. Consciously, or unconsciously players wanted to touch these. Changing the color to a more reddish tint helped to prevent the issue and solidify the idea that circles are dangerous.