The Playtester

A playtest in captivity

The Playtester is a first-person game about testing video games made by aliens called 0 Time. You wake in a small cell with a PC, a cartridge vending machine, a library screen and a panel tracking your shift, performance and points. Three shapes watch from behind glass. You pick a cartridge, put it in the PC and play the game on its screen.

There are eight short 2D games: a platformer, a falling-block plating puzzle, a target range, a memory game, a dungeon crawl, an alien take on blackjack, a conveyor-belt sorting game and a worm. You start with two cartridges. Another is released each time a human dies.