Looking Forward

Last time I talked about last year, so this time I'll have a think about what I'm planning to do this year from a game design perspective.

Cheesy stock art time.  Yoinked from Pixabay where they say this is public domain.

I think that probably my biggest hope is to do more playtesting.  A lot more playtesting.  And developing some of the games I already have in the pipeline some more.  This means that I might have to back off on rattling out new games for the 24 hour contests and the like, though I'd still like to take part in some of them, but I think the focus for 2016 should be getting at least a couple of games into a much more developed condition.

I am starting off the year as I hope to continue, as this weekend I will be heading into London for a Playtest UK meet; I can't make these very often as most are on weekday evenings nowhere near me, but I can occasionally get into The Smoke for a Sunday afternoon, so here goes.  I'll also try to convene a local playtesting group a little more often and be a little more forward in asking people to play prototypes.

In particular, as I have made a fair bit of progress (albeit slowly) with Boogie Knights, I would really like to get the rest of the rough edges knocked off.  Then I can decide if I will try pitching it to a publisher or just leave it as a print and play game.  I'm not sure which other game or games will benefit from the extra attention, but I'm sure I will be posting here about how things go.

Which brings us to the big one, getting published, which friends do ask me about from time to time...

I would be lying if I said that I do not hope to get a game published one day, but I think that realistically I am some way away from that.  I don't want to get a game published at all costs and I sure as hell don't want to publish myself, so I will continue to plug along and get some of my designs to a level where I can be really proud of them.  Yes, I know this is me putting off taking the risk of pitching to a publisher, but I'm happy with that for now.  And you never know what will happen along the way.

Apart from the actual testing and developing, I need to get more practice with rulebooks.  I am definitely coming to the conclusion that I would like to be known for being able to produce a really good set of rules.  I am also acutely aware that I am still a long way from that goal.  So the aim is to get practice.  I will volunteer to proofread, edit, rewrite and otherwise help with as many other people's rulebooks as I am able, and I will work hard to improve my own work too.  (So if you have a rulebook you would like an extra pair of eyes on, please let me know!)

So that's the plan.  More playtesting and development, and more work on writing rules.  We'll see how I get on over the next 12 months...