How to playtest a print and play game online

Get your sheet online

Iterary works from images hosted on the web: it links to them and never uploads or stores them. Export each card sheet from your design tool as a PNG or JPG and put it anywhere that gives you a direct public image link.

A sheet is one image holding a grid of cards, the same layout you would print. Card backs can be their own sheet or a single image.

Cut the sheet into cards

1. Open any picture picker (on a card, for example) and go to My library, then choose Import sheet.
2. Paste the sheet link and set the cut: the size of one card cell, with optional padding and offset for sheets that have margins or gutters, or split it evenly by columns and rows. The cuts are drawn over the sheet as you adjust them.
3. Save it. The sheet goes into your image library with its cut, and any card picture can now be any cell.
4. To build a whole deck at once, select a deck and use Cards from a card sheet in its inspector: it adds one card per cell.

Add the rest of the components

Most print and play games are more than a deck. Add Dice with your own faces (text, icons or image links), Counters for points and resources, a Board with a background image for the map, and a Bag for anything drawn blind.

Hold Alt with the pointer over a card to peek at it big and readable, which helps when small print and play text has to be read on a laptop screen.

Playtest, change, repeat

Switch to Play and run the game by hand; Iterary has no rules engine, so the players handle everything just as they would on paper. A Log records draws, rolls and counter changes so you can review a session afterwards.

When you revise the art, update the sheet in your library and the game picks up the new version. Share a link with your testers and each of them gets their own copy to play.

Try it in the gallery

• Board Game Expansion Prototype A King of Tokyo-style expansion prototype you can playtest free in your browser: six custom monster dice, a deck of power cards, and a tray per player for health, energy and points. A starting point for prototyping your own dice game expansion.
• Counter board game template A free, browser-based template for a No Thanks!-style push-your-luck card game: pull numbered cards from a bag, pay a chip to pass or take the card and its chips, with each player's chips hidden in a private seat. Copy it to playtest your own chip-and-card game.
• Civilization Board Game A free, playable score sheet for a dice-driven civilization board game in your browser: roll the dice, then track cities, monuments, improvements, goods and disasters with checkboxes and counters you can edit.