Thank goodness for the Finns. One of the cool things about the playtest group I’ve assembled so far for Tokyo Rain is that it is comprised of players from around the globe. I’ve got playtesters from Italy, Autralia, Brazil, Tokyo (natch!), and many others. And I’ve got Finns.

Most people don’t know this, but Finland has an amazingly robust role-playing game scene. In fact, you can get a national grant to design role-playing games. So it will come as no surprise that the Finnish group of Petri Leinonen, Mikko Merilainen, and Petteri Autero just dropped some amazing playtest notes on me.

Much of what they had to say will find its way in the next version of the Playtest Doc (which should be available right after the holidays). They also had this reassuring comment: “The game was great fun to play and ponder about. It was different from typical games in so many ways that it was really refreshing.”