Posted 9/23/15 8:49 AM
Hi, There's a separate meetup group in London just for game deisgners/playtesters. Check it out: http://www.meetup.com... Cheers, Dean.
Posted 9/23/15 10:55 AM
Each month there are generally 6 playtest meetups in London. 3rd Sunday (1-7ish), at Jugged Hare (Vauxhall Bridge Road) 2nd, 4th Mondays (6-11ish)at JH 1st Monday (7-11ish) in Enfield once a fortnight Fridays (10am-6pmish) at Royal Festival Hall. Whether you work 'normal hours' or work in a bar, there will be some you can attend. The format is slightly different each day, but Friday daytimes are possibly the most relaxed since most folk have a lot more time and so (after splitting time equally) everyone gets more playtesting time. Regarding your idea, it does sound fun. It reminds me of 'I Betcha'. You've got to do a seemingly strange thing without getting caught, so the optimal strategy becomes to mix in other strange things. In your game, if I get the words, "Vintage erotica", can I just say, "When studying Adoption Studies, I met a lot of misogynistic people with Intergluteal Cleft, who would shout 'Boomdiggity' whenever encountering Vintage erotica." ? In 'I betcha', it kinda works because watching other people physically doing odd things (to cover up their real goal) is amusing. I think the key thing to do is to test the core mechanism rather than fretting about a scoring system. For a party game, if people aren't laughing are the core activity, something's wrong. I like to think that In A Bind is a great game, but the first prototype was very different and very shit. It may be that you follow a lacklustre first playtest with some insights and it slowly evolves into a first playtest. It may be that your first playtest shows there is already fun to be had and it just needs to be massaged into something great. Or it may be a dead end. All are OK. Why do you suggest particular player counts? You haven't even played it! What makes you think these particular player counts are better? Why is it better to have an even number? It may be that 3 players is also fine, or that 5 players is far better than 10, given the time between turns. (I might rather be the active player more than 10% of the time.) Anyway, if you come along sometime, you can actually play it for a wee bit. Theorycrafting is good but only takes you so far.
Edited by Bez (née Behrooz Shahriari) on Sep 23, 2015 10:56 AM
A former member
Posted 9/23/15 8:40 PM
Yeah ill definitely come to a meetup soon once im happy with the mechanics, and thanks for the feedback guys!
Posted 9/24/15 6:59 AM
To be clear, prototypes/playtests are generally not permitted at London on Board as there are plenty of other meetups which are specifically for them. Please get in touch with one of the organisers first: http://www.meetup.com...
Edited by Daniel W on Sep 24, 2015 9:02 AM
Posted 9/24/15 9:46 AM
I wouldn't agree that there are "plenty of other meetups which are specifically for them" - the only one I'm aware of is Playtest UK and I've spent time looking. However, that's not the reason and is completely besides the point. Folk at LoB come to be entertained and play fun games. They don't want to play things that might crash and burn, then spend an equal amount of time time discussing it. Playing an early prototype at LoB is completely disrespectful to the club and its aims. It's not what most folk come for and - as a designer - you won't even get any valuable feedback anyway. On a separate point, don't come to a playtest group when you're 'happy with the mechanics'. That's the point of the playtest group - to play bad games so that we can rip them apart and the world at large will never see them. If you show off a bad game a couple of times, fellow designers can help guide you towards possible better implementations. edit: That's not to say you can't come when you're happy with your game. You can refine it or test out your rulebook. But my point was that you don't need to wait until then. :-)
Edited by Bez (née Behrooz Shahriari) on Sep 24, 2015 10:06 PM
A former member
Posted 9/26/15 3:13 PM
@Behrooz, in regards to your question earlier, players can only use a single word from their card they cant form a sentence using more than one word from the card.
Posted 9/26/15 5:44 PM
in my time.. i have seen couple/few times people playtesting their game.. whats more fun then being part of a new game.. sure it may not be that great. but then again sometimes you may play a game (published) that afterwards didn't like but thought was good.. what do you do? ban that game.. In any case, do contact the organisers and get their approval.. like Daniel mentioned
Edited by Shehzad Azr on Sep 26, 2015 5:44 PM