That being said, you hold (whether you realize it or not) a rather elevated position above the people from whom you might be trying to solicit objective feedback. Nothing inherently wrong with that, as long as you're aware that it’s in their best interest to heap praise on the game considering you hold their grades in your hands.

But not everything you don't need to know, like it's name. That's a barnacle. But I still love the point your making here. :)

I've long wished for an HN-like community which combined software folks, sci ed researchers and creators, and teachers - to get tighter loops around "What do you think? / Could you try this?". But it still wouldn't be the power of playtesting.

I wonder how one might offer playtesting as a service?

> I want to target people of all ages and backgrounds

This opens up opportunities for guerrilla usability testing with adults. Though I've little idea what forms of it might fit culturally in Japan. In Cambridge MA, I could easily do street conversation testing.

Which still leaves ethical issues. One participant was distressed, "Disgusting!", and I only figured it out later... a (Powers of Ten zoomed) E. coli micrograph can look like poop.

> The importance of playtesting cannot be understated.

s//overstated/. Very yes. I've been gobsmacked by things which turned up in user testing. Example: a scene opens with a cartoon character reading a sign aloud... and the cognitive load spike (new setting + audio + text) disappears the entire event from memory. Literally: pause for feedback, "You should say what this is up front", hit replay, "Oh yes, this version is much better than the first one".