Playtest group

A group is the circle through which other accounts can start a game of yours that has not been released. You take members in with an invite code, add your games, and decide per game what they may do with them. A member gets the game in their own controller; they only see into the Builder if you grant that separately.

The sidebar’s Playtest groups row opens the page.

As many groups as you need

You create a group yourself, and as many as you need. There is no ready-made “your group”: on a brand new account the list is empty, and this stands on it: “No groups yet.”

On the page, every group and organisation of yours is a card:

On the card	What it shows
Icon	people for a group, a building for an organisation
Name	what you gave it
`Group` or `Organisation`	which kind it is
`You own it`	only if you created it
`N members` and `N games`	the current size and the number of games in it

A group and an organisation are the same entity, they are only for different things: a group for testing, an organisation for working together, with roles. The Organisations page goes through the difference. This page is about what the two have in common.

A new group

The New group button in the top right corner of the page (and in the middle of an empty list) opens a modal. It has a single field, the Name (e.g. Harbour testers), and after the Create button the group appears in the list and in the sidebar at once.

You do not create an organisation here but from the workspace switcher’s Add organization row, see Organisations.

⚠ Your plan limits the number of groups. If you have reached the limit, creation does not start, and an explanatory panel appears with the current and the allowed count, see Account.

The invite code

The Invite code button in the header of the group’s page opens a modal. What you see there:

Element	What it does
The code	Twelve capital letters, broken up by hyphens every three characters (`KQZ-ONG-ANC-QRF`). It can be selected, and copied to the clipboard with the icon beside it
`Expires in 23h 59m`	The time left. On an expired code a red `Expired` stands in its place
`Generate new code`	Asks for a new code. The old one is invalid from that moment, one code is live at a time
`Close`	Closes the modal. The code survives, you do not have to generate it again

The modal’s text says what you have to do too: “Share this code. Anyone who enters it in the app joins the group.”

The code is valid for 24 hours.

⚠ The Invite code button can generate by itself. If you have no live code, or the one you had has expired, opening the modal asks for a new code at once, without checking with you. If you only wanted to look at the old code, you have already thrown it away.

A member does not redeem the code in the Builder but in the controller app, on their own profile. That is also where they can leave the group later.

The system turns two things down: you cannot join your own group (the same account), and a member who has already joined cannot join again with the same code.

⚠ Your plan can limit the size of a group too. If it is full, joining does not get through on the other side.

The members

The first section of the group’s page is the list of members. The heading gives the size (5 members), with the search and the sort beside it.

On a row:

the avatar and the name, with a You own it tag on the owner;
Joined <date>, Last party <when> (or never), and N parties total;
in an organisation, the member’s roles as tags, or No roles;
the actions on the right: Manage roles (in an organisation) and Remove.

Two tools in the header help when there are a lot of members:

Search: the Search by name... field filters on a fragment of a name.
Sort: the dropdown offers three orders, Sort by name (the default), Sort by last party, Sort by total parties.

While you have no members, this stands where the list would be: “No members yet. Invite them with an invite code!”

The owner can remove a member: Remove on the row asks for a confirmation, and the text spells out the consequence as well: “Their games leave the group too.” The owner cannot be removed.

Anybody who is not the owner sees the Leave group button in the header: “You can rejoin later with an invite code.”

The group’s games

The second section of the group’s page is Games in the group: every game that is in the group. If it is not yours, the owner’s name stands at the end of the row.

You put a game into the group in two ways:

From the game’s Access page, with the Add to group button. You set what the group should allow right there as well.
From the sidebar: while you are on the group’s page, every game of yours that is not in it yet stands under the group’s games in the sidebar as a faint row with a plus sign. ⚠ One click adds it at once, with no confirmation. The game goes in with an empty ceiling then, so members can do nothing at all with it until you set it on the Access page.

Clicking one of your own games’ rows takes you straight to the game’s Access page, to the card that shows this group.

The ceiling: what the group allows

A group does not grant access to everything automatically. You set a ceiling per game, which says the most members may do with that game. The switches fall into four sections:

Section	What it is for
Play	they can start the game and pick pieces up
Edit	they can work on the game in the Builder
Release	they can make releases and make things public
Parties	the party features, party playback for instance

A new share only grants the Play right to start with: the usual case for testing. You set the ceiling on the game’s Access page, separately per group.

⚠ Some switches can carry a faint note: “Not in the current game space plan.” The right is switched on then, but the feature is not live because of the plan.

What a member sees

The group’s games appear in their game chooser, as though they were their own.
They only see released versions: never the draft, never the deprecated releases.
They only see into the Builder if the ceiling grants the Edit right too. For testing that is usually not switched on.

Two things happen automatically, and are worth knowing about:

Take the game out of the group and the access goes with it, for every member, at once. The confirming text spells it out: “Its members lose every right to it at once.”
Remove a member and their games leave the group too.

Party history

Clicking the group’s games in the sidebar opens the list of parties: who played with it, when, and for how long. On a row, the party’s date and length, the name of whoever started it, the party’s code, its state (Active, Paused or Finished), and the participants at the bottom.

The list starts with the most recent party. The header’s Refresh button reloads it, it does not refresh by itself. If nobody has played with it yet: “No parties for this game yet.”

The header’s Remove from group button takes the game out of the group, after a confirmation. The game itself is not harmed, only the group’s access to it ends.

Deleting a group

The red Delete group sits in the header of the group’s page, for the owner. The confirming text spells out what goes with it: “Every member and invite code goes with it. The games themselves stay with their owners.”

Worth knowing

The Invite code button can generate. With no live code, opening the modal throws the old one away, see above.
Adding from the sidebar does not check with you. One misplaced click puts a game that is not even finished into the group, with an empty ceiling, admittedly.
An empty ceiling is silent. Members can do nothing with a freshly added game until you switch on at least Play on the Access page.
The sidebar offers your own games, not the group’s. If somebody else’s game is in the group, it shows on the group’s page, not in the sidebar.
The party list does not refresh by itself, the Refresh button reloads it.