Frequently Asked Questions

The questions below come up most often from people deciding whether to build their workflow around Playtest Parlor. They group into three areas: what it costs over the life of a project, how you get your data out, and why a single playtesting-focused platform is the right tool for the job.

Pricing

How does Playtest Parlor charge me?

There are three plans. Starter is free, Casual is $18 a year, and Pro is $9 a month or $84 a year. Everyone you invite to a table joins for free, whatever your plan. See the pricing page for what each includes.

What is a Pro session?

A Pro session gives one play session what Pro gives every session: Pythia, New table from here in its replay, reopening it after it ends, a picture of the table with each marked moment, and a replay kept for 90 days after the session ends instead of a day. Casual comes with one a year, and a new one when your plan renews; an unused one does not carry over. On Pro every session of your games is a Pro session already. Starter has none.

Anyone who can edit the game can make a session a Pro session, at any time while it is played or within a day of its end, using their own Pro session. At the table, press the sparkle button and choose Get Pythia: make this a Pro session. Once the session has ended, choose Keep this replay in the Session Ended dialog, beside Watching Replay when you open its replay, or on its run in the Design Journal. A dialog first tells you how many you have left this year.

It cannot be undone, and a Pro session cannot be bought, given away or refunded. A Reset Table ends a Pro session: its replay and run are kept, and play goes on in a new, normal session. A new table started from its replay is a normal session too.

Can I reopen a session after it ends?

Yes, on Pro or in a Pro session, while its replay is still kept. Anyone who can edit the game can choose Reopen Session in the Session Ended dialog, or Reopen beside Watching Replay when they open its replay, and play goes on where it stopped, at the same table link. Players who come back to the link on the same account or browser sit down in their seats again, and the people watching the replay watch the table instead. The table gets a new Discord voice channel, with a new invite, as a new table does. When it ends again, its run in the Design Journal is updated rather than a second one added, and its replay is kept 90 days from the new end. A session a Reset Table ended cannot be reopened, since play already went on in a new session at its link; use New table from here in its replay to play on from it. Outside Pro, the Session Ended dialog shows the button greyed out, with how to get it.

What does each plan include?

The limits follow the game's owner. A table of your game seats as many players as your plan allows, and art uploaded to your game counts against your storage, whoever uploads it. Settings > Storage shows how much of your storage you are using.

What counts toward my storage?

Every file at its real size, counted once however many pieces show it:

• The files your games show: card and token art, models, book pages, rules and other documents, table backgrounds and sharing images. A file you replace or remove from your game stops counting. A file you have just uploaded counts straight away, before anything shows it, and stops counting an hour later if nothing does.
• The files you upload yourself outside a game's content: drawings on a table and pictures of marked moments in the Design Journal. A drawing counts while a piece on its table shows it or the table's undo history keeps it; Reset Table clears the undo history, so the drawings the reset does not put back are deleted an hour later. A picture counts until its run or the game is deleted. A drawing or picture that nothing used within an hour of its upload, such as a stroke you drew over before it was saved, is deleted and stops counting.

What happens when I reach a limit?

You are told which limit you reached and which plan lifts it. Nothing is ever deleted. If you have more games or more stored art than your plan allows, for example after moving to a smaller plan, you keep every game and can go on playing them, but you cannot create another game or upload more until you are back under the limit or upgrade. A player who joins a table that is full for its owner's plan is told how many players it seats.

What happened to credits?

Credits are gone. Nothing on Playtest Parlor costs a credit any more: starting, resetting and joining a table are free on every plan. Credit balances, credit history and gift codes have been removed, and credits that were given away free are not replaced. Anyone who paid for credits is refunded what they paid.

A monthly price looks small, but my game could take a year or more to design. Won't that add up?

Not if you pause it. Between projects, or in a stretch where you are not testing, pause your Pro subscription for up to a year at a time: no renewals are charged while it is paused, and your work is kept. Paying yearly also costs less than twelve monthly charges.

Which option fits me?

See the pricing page for current prices.

Can I move from Casual to Pro?

Yes. On the pricing page, pick monthly or yearly and press Switch to Pro. Pro starts straight away, and you are credited for the unused part of your Casual year, so you never pay for the same days twice. If that credit is more than your first Pro charge, the rest pays your next renewals.

Can I pause my subscription?

On Pro, yes, for up to one year at a time. Casual cannot pause. Pausing stops future renewals and keeps your subscription and all your work. The period you are in is already paid and is not refunded: your subscriber features stay on until it ends, then pause, and your games are read-only until you resume. See Pausing Your Subscription for exactly what is and is not charged.

Working with other designers

Someone invited me to their game. Where do I find it later?

On My Games, under Shared with you. Every game another designer has invited you to work on is listed there, so you never need the original invite link again.

The section only appears once you have been invited to something.

Who can open my game?

Only you, the designers you invite as collaborators, and Playtest Parlor's administrators. Anyone else who opens your game's page is told it is not shared, and cannot see its rules, files or tables, or start a table of it. To have someone play, start a table and send them its link: press Share Session at the table to copy it. Anyone with a table link can join that table, signed in or not.

Can people play my game without me there?

Yes, with Link access on a Pro plan. Turn on Anyone with the link can play in your game's Settings, and anyone with your game's link can read its description and rules and press Play to start a table of it, without an account. You host those tables, nobody is charged, and the plays show in your Design Journal. If your plan ends, the switch stays on but stops working until you resubscribe. See Sharing Your Game.

Can my game have a shorter link?

Yes, with Pro. Under Link Access in your game's Settings, set a Link Name such as big-cards, and your game's link becomes playtestparlor.com/g/big-cards. Each name belongs to one game; if it is taken you are offered a free one. Copy the link from Settings. See Sharing Your Game.

Do I need a subscription to collaborate on someone's game?

No. Collaborating is available on every plan, including a free account. The same is true of the REST API.

Your account

How long do I stay signed in?

Each time you use Playtest Parlor, your sign-in is renewed for another 14 days, so you stay signed in as long as you come back within 14 days. However often you use it, you are asked to sign in again 30 days after you last signed in. At that point the old sign-in stops working everywhere, not only in your browser.

If signing out does not finish, for example because your connection dropped, Playtest Parlor tells you that you are still signed in and offers Try again.

Your data, exports, and replays

Can I export my project data?

Yes. Project data is fully exportable. Open your game, go to the Export tab, and Playtest Parlor builds a downloadable archive of your game: its table configurations, pieces, import sources, and uploaded assets. Your work is yours to take with you.

Can I download the images and files I uploaded?

Yes. Every file you upload can be re-downloaded. Nothing you bring in gets locked away.

Can I download replays or recordings?

Not as a video. A replay is not a recording of the screen; it is a record of everything that happened at the table, played back through Playtest Parlor itself, which is what rebuilds the table at each moment.

What you can download is that record: the session's action log, as a CSV or JSON file. It lists every action in order, with the time, the seat that took it, a plain description such as "Seat 2 drew 3 cards from Deck A", and every piece it touched. Actions that were undone are left out. Choose CSV or JSON under Download log in the Watch Replay panel, or Log CSV / Log JSON on the run in the Design Journal. Tools can fetch it through the Sessions API.

Only people who can edit the game can download it, because it includes everything, hidden information too: every player's hand and every restricted space.

How long is my data stored?

Most of your data -- games, table configurations, uploaded assets, import history -- is kept indefinitely. It stays available as long as your account does. The one exception is session replays, which are kept for a day after the session ends, or 90 days on a Pro plan or in a Pro session (see the next question).

How long are replays kept?

A replay is kept for 24 hours after its session ends. When the game's owner is on a Pro plan, every session of the game is a kept replay, kept for 90 days after it ends. So is a Pro session: on Casual, choose Keep this replay within a day of the session's end to keep it. After that the replay is deleted, along with the session's action log. Everything else about the game and its assets remains, and so does the playtest's entry in the Design Journal; it is the moment-by-moment session playback specifically that expires.

A session that is never ended is deleted 30 days after its table was created, or 30 days after it was reopened. A table ends on its own after an hour with nobody at it.

Reset Table on a table whose replay is kept ends its session first, instead of deleting what was played: the replay and its run in the Design Journal are kept, and play goes on in a new session at the same table link, with everyone still in their seats.

While it is kept, a replay holds on to the artwork its pieces show, even art you have since removed from the game, and that art counts toward the game owner's storage. To free that space sooner, open the run in the Design Journal and choose Delete Replay. Deleting the run itself deletes its replay too.

Why one connected playtesting platform

Why use an all-in-one platform instead of separate tools?

Stitching together a tabletop tool, a rules doc, a survey form, a recorder, and an asset editor can work, but every seam is a place where context falls out: the survey does not know what happened at the table, the recording does not line up with the rules version, the asset edits do not flow back into play. Playtest Parlor keeps all of it connected so feedback, session history, and the actual game state stay in one place.

Is Playtest Parlor trying to be everything?

No, and that is deliberate. We are not a publishing platform, and we are not a universal sandbox trying to make every game ever designed run inside it. The word playtest is right in the name. Playtest Parlor is built to be the best place to test and iterate on a board game. An all-in-one tool that tries to do everything usually does each thing poorly -- you do not want a hammer when you need a screwdriver. By staying focused on the playtesting experience, the parts that matter for iteration are the parts we make excellent.

If you want a fuller comparison, see Why Playtest Parlor? and the side-by-side breakdowns of how it compares to other tools.