[Some repetition here, sorry. I'd written and posted this to my blog before I'd seen this thread.]
Congratulations Richard and
Boardgames Australia for the successful running of the first ever formal and open Sydney Protospiel event.
A bit over a dozen game designers and I believe 11 original designs rolled out, the format was 3-4 tables and 3 sessions running about 2 hrs each play session.
All participants, including me, signed a non-disclosure agreement, so I won’t reveal details of people’s games, or even working title names here. I’ll only describe in very general terms some of things I saw.
The quality of the prototypes was variable as one would expect, but I was pleasantly surprised at just how good some of these were. I didn’t get a good look at everything, but Phil R. and Jesse’s WWI scenario wargame was a particular standout - it actually looked like a professionally published title. I understand they have a third collaborator who actually does game artwork - obviously a great boost to the look-and-feel of the game. This was a little reminiscent of Peter Hawes’ prototype that I saw at the Australian Games Expo earlier this year - his follow-up to
Heads of State that actually looked like a finished and published product. Being Brisbane-based, neither Peter nor his new game were in attendance today, unfortunately.
Another game I would have like to have tried but didn’t get to was the new one from Phil Harding, of
Cannonball Colony and
Archaeology fame. Z-Man took up Archaeology TCG last year and it was finally released in March. Phil had a copy to show, complete with the Z-Man logo and still in shrink-wrap. A great result.
The last game I played was from Lawrence, who had hand-carved the core components of his game from balsa wood to really enrich the theme. I think his design was the most successful of all those I saw in embodying a specific theme within a playable game. The challenge will be in capturing that richness in the components in a mass-produced way, and we talked about various compromises that might be possible to make it work. In the meantime, Lawrence’s prototype remains an outstanding work of art in its own right.
The first game I played was a very nice hidden info/memory game from David, incorporating arbitrary visual cues that the players themselves deploy on to the game board. While not as rich as Lawrence’s game, David’s also included a fitting and very elegant theme. With only a little tweaking in the turn action mechanics, I could see a published version of this title very comfortably sitting alongside high-quality peers on the shelves of game shops. I hope you persist with this, David!
I was happy with the playtest session for my own creation, although more specifically I was happy with the feedback I received from the three ‘victims’ who hadn’t played any previous version of the rules. I had introduced a new feature recently that worked fine in simulated playing (ie., on a spreadsheet), but frankly failed to impress human players! This is an excellent outcome, because it means I must either rethink or eliminate outright that feature to improve the game experience. This barely needs stating, since that was one of the prime reasons for attending the protospiel (another is the networking with like-minded individuals and exchange of ideas, etc.). But it is reinforcement that at least two forms of playtesting can be greatly valuable. One is the simulations and walk-throughs, to try to flush out the major bugs before you inflict it on anyone else at all. The other is the playtesting with real people, preferably people who haven’t played it before and have no vested interest in your feelings so as not to be perfectly honest with you.
Richard asked for feedback on the whole event, so here are some quick thoughts.
First of all, if the next session followed the exact same routine as this one, I’d be just as eager a participant. The only small negative was the nature of the venue – the room was kind of pokey and cluttered. No-one was expecting the Savoy ballroom of course, but it was occasionally a little awkward moving between tables, chairs and gamers. But on the up-side, the venue was free and food and drink (including beer) was available right there. As I said earlier, with everything exactly the same, I’d be there.
Certainly also I’d like to see more designers and designs in attendance, but that is a variable not so easy to control. And the management of such a forum would become progressively more unwieldy the more people became involved, so that means a bit of a balancing act would be needed.
Other thoughts – more a wishlist than a set of expectations - is to perhaps have special guests doing short talks, similar maybe to the designers session they ran last year at the 2008 Games Expo in Albury. That of course would mean, a) less time for games, and b) yet more organisation and coordination. Also, judging and prizes for a “designer’s choice award” or similar. Although to make that work would require that everyone got a taste of everyone else’s game design and the format would have to be radically different. It might risk the whole day being a flop if no-one was satisfied that their game could get a decent airing with only 30-40 minutes spent on each game in the allotted time. Although I can imagine a way to do this myself, it may be just too much of a stretch to expect this from many designer folks.
Yet another thought is to have an established game publisher, maybe doubling as a guest speaker, to be an on-the-spot judge for the one design of the day determined to be the most likely commercial success. At the end of the day they award the prize and provide an explanation of why they were chosen, perhaps flushing up issues of cost of production versus likely shelf price range, target markets, etc.
Anyway, the forum is replete with possibilities and I look forward to the next game design session soon.
(Originally posted in
The Mine Shaft Gap.)
Last edited on 2009-05-18 09:00:15 CST (Total Number of Edits: 1)
Posted Thu Apr 16, 2009 5:15 am
