The UK Games Expodition

It has been nearly a month since UK Games Expo, with the official attendance figures showing that the event has fully recovered from the hit from the pandemic and is now bigger than ever before. I haven't seen any breakdowns, but from where I stood, Friday seemed to be incredibly busy, Saturday even more so (though the end of the day seemed to drop off more), and Sunday was a lot more relaxed - though still very full of people.

As planned, I spent almost my entire time at the Playtest Zone, wearing a red t-shirt and helping keep things going there, though for most of the time it wasn't hard work. We have a sort of saying there: unlike most other stalls and zones around the Expo, the busier it gets, the less we have to do. When things are going well, there are a constant flow of players wanting to playtest a prototype, and sometimes they don't even need directing to a table. 

The Playtest Zone (red tables) in full flow on Friday morning.
There were more tables behind me and to the side as well!

I actually found that most of my effort was spent explaining to passers-by how the area works, as it isn't really obvious, especially as so much other stuff around the halls requires you to book a spot in advance. In the Playtest Zone, if you are a player looking to test something, you just need to turn up and if there is a game requiring players you can just sit down and play.

There was a nice facility next to us that I didn't take advantage of, but may do in future: this was an area run by Panda Game Manufacturing, who sponsor the Publisher-Designer track of the event, where they provide a few tables that can be used by designers and publishers for ad-hoc meetings, and there were quite a lot of people using the tables throughout. Panda also had some giveaways, including the rather cute "Game Design Toolkit", which is a small game box full of tokens, dice, stickers, and blank tiles and cards that you can use to create a game. It's largely there as a promotional demo of the sort of quality of the components they can produce, but it's genuinely a cool box of stuff and would be a great focus for an introductory game design workshop or something. 

I managed to get playtests of both Sympolis (in an official playtesting slot) and Grab Bag Zoo (as a casual play one evening), getting valuable feedback for both.

Sympolis in play for three players, one of whom is
accumulating Jealousy and Hubris cards at an alarming rate.

As seems to be my way, I didn't get to play many games over the weekend and didn't get to spend as much time as I would have liked with... anyone really, and I spent most of my evenings just too tired to do anything much, but it was again an amazing experience all around and I'm already looking forward to pretty much doing the whole thing again next year.

I'll just sign off for today with the most exciting news (for me, anyway) of the weekend: we have found a publisher for Grab Bag Zoo! We are in the process of negotiating a contract (so it's not quite a done deal) and I can't tell you any details at the moment, but when there is anything to officially announce, you bet I'll be shouting about it! Watch this space for more information when I can... 

Getting Ready for Expo

It's that time of year! Yup, in less that two weeks, it'll be UK Games Expo, the biggest gaming event I go to regularly. My plans are the same as they have been for the last few years: I will be working at the Playtest UK area (Stand 1-384, at the far left corner of hall 1), where we will be providing tables for designers to have their unpublished games tested by all and sundry. If you are going to be there, please come by and say hello, and maybe play one of the prototypes there.

The current version of Sympolis, which I'll have with me for playtesting.

I haven't gone for the rounds of pitching meetings this year (though I am hoping to meet up with a few people at various times), but I have a playtesting slot booked for Saturday from 4:30pm, to round the day off. Hopefully I'll get at least one play through of that. I'll also have a copy of Grab Bag Zoo with me, in case the mood strikes.

I'm really looking forward to this. I usually end up physically, mentally, and emotionally drained, but in a good way that, once I've rested, I bounce back re-energised. It's then a matter of trying to make the most of that over the month or two that follows. Fingers crossed...

Dragons and Cities and Gods, Oh My!

 

Cast your mind back to the end of November and the beginning of December, and imagine a game designer who has spent the time since then not getting around to writing about what he did regarding game design that week. OK, scene set.

I actually had two playtests of my cooperative dice allocation game Sympolis over the course of that week: one was virtual, on Screentop.gg, and one physical, at Dragonmeet. 

The first test ended in a loss for the players, with a small chance of a win on the final turn, but that chance really required great dice rolling at that point, which they did not have. There was a sense that another play could have a better result, but also some frustration at some aspects of the game (for example, the players were only able to generate one of the "wild" purple dice each round, due to an unlucky shuffle), and while I am pretty sure there were some decisions that could have improved the situation, the problem was mostly that the players were screwed by bad card draws and dice rolls and not by poor play. Besides that though, the biggest takeaway I had was how energised and proactive the players were: they self-organised quickly, discussing how to solve the problems presented by the game, and while there were frustrations (and not always in a good way), the vibe was really what I want for the game. Now I need to figure out how to bottle that!

I made a few small changes to the game in between, which effectively game a little additional resource and control at the start of the game, partly as one of the biggest problems with the virtual test was due to a dearth of resources (aka dice supply) and vulnerability to bad luck. And then there was a load of printing and cutting of cards to make an actual, physical prototype.

On to Dragonmeet. If you didn't know it, this is a nice, one day convention in London that was traditionally, and is still, largely based around tabletop roleplaying games, though there is a load of board game stuff there, including some great traders and a playtest area organised by Playtest UK - and every time I have been to the event, I have spent most of my time staffing the playtest area (with the exception of last year when there wasn't official playtesting, but a group of us got together and did some anyway).

I failed to take a photograph of play at Dragonmeet, so I faked one here
with some red fabric and components laid out to plausibly represent play.

Anyway, as well as staffing the playtesting area, I had a slot to test one of my games, and I had four great volunteers to test Sympolis. Once again, the players came out of the gates hard. They seemed to get their heads around the challenges pretty quickly and were actively and pretty intensely discussing their options, and we had pretty much the same apparent engagement from the players as in the previous test. Both groups were experienced board gamers, so maybe not fully representative players, but again I am very happy with this. As it turns out, the combination of the changes I made and the different random elements meant that this group won the game with a full round to spare. I think the two groups seemed to be making approximately equally good decisions (though they had different priorities), so it was probably the game setup and play state that made the difference.

A major note in the Dragonmeet play was that none of the players had problems with their wrath tracks, which record problems in the eyes of the gods and populace and provide one of the ways to lose the game. If your wrath tracks are low, it means that you can take bigger risks more confidently in the knowledge that misjudgement at least won't result in the end of the game, and thus you have an easier time of it. I had a useful discussion with one of the players afterwards, and we talked about mechanisms that compensate for things going too well; I have built up a number of elements that can mitigate "bad" luck, but now we have the opposite problem. One thought was that there could be some form of "push back" coming from having low scores on the wrath tracks: if the people are too happy, they get decadent and make bigger demands, for instance. I am pondering ways to approach this, but I like the idea and think it could work well.

One little aside... The current version of the game has a "wrath" card flipped at the end of every round, and these add an additional stressor to the game, which can make things get out of hand if players don't manage them effectively, and these also provide a timer for the game: the last of these cards flipped over means that the game is over. In general, I quite like how these work, but we run into the hoary problem of there being an upkeep action that isn't directly linked in to the game and the players aren't actually motivated to do. In the virtual test, one of the players was very good at being in charge of methodically flipping one of these each time, but in the physical test at Dragonmeet, it got forgotten (and needed reminding) a couple of times, and the rest of the time it was remembered as an afterthought. This is not ideal, and I need to figure out a way to make it so that the game requires the players to flip this card in order to proceed: maybe it actually triggers the gaining of resources, or something. Or, of course, I could find another way to ramp things up through the game: this particular mechanism isn't set in stone.

Aside number 2... With cooperative games there is a common concern about an effect that is often described as the "alpha player" or "quarterback" problem, which is where one player takes control of the game and can sometimes just tell other players what they should do, meaning that less confident players can find themselves just sitting at a table, watching someone else playing the game on their behalf. This seems to me to be a problem with a group dynamic more than anything, but game systems can mitigate this to make it so that an alpha player is less likely to emerge - or even, can't emerge. Examples include having restricted communication, or a real-time element to the game (Magic Maze is an example that has both of these). My inclination at the moment is to just not worry about it for this game. With a good group, it isn't an issue, and the energy at the table from having loose rules that give the players a lot of freedom appears to work well, and I suspect that any attempt to add a mitigation would damage that dynamic I like seeing. That said, I'm now wondering what the game would be like with limited player communication and a strict turn order; it would feel very different, but could be good. I'm staying focused on my current path, but this is a potential alternative for later.

Anyway, I just about managed to get this post in before the end of the year, so I'll wish you a happy Yule, Christmas, New Year, or whatever you celebrate at this time of the year, and all the best for 2024...

Cities Together at the Expo

So that was UK Games Expo 2023, and another great weekend it was. I worked at the Playtest Zone for most of my time there (at least during the days, anyway), met fine people new and old (in relationship terms, at least!), talked a lot, playtested my City State Co-op Game, ate mostly overpriced burgers and pasties, bought a bit of stuff, and played very few games. I'll talk about my playtest first and then move on to some more about other things, though still mostly about the playtesting.

While I was spending most of my time helping other folk at the Playtest Zone, I also had a 90 minute slot booked for testing one of my own games. As it turned out I didn't need to wait for players as I had been talking to a few people about the game through the day, and a couple of them turned up specifically to play, each bringingong a friend to make up a perfect table of four.

As an aside, my opening line when asked about the game was, "It's a cooperative game where you have to attack each other", which is probably the strongest hook I have ever had for a prototype, as it always resulted in some sort of a "tell me more" response. Well worth remembering.

A few turns into the game, showing cities developing very differently.

I wasn't sure about how long the game would run, but guessed about 45 minutes, and it actually came in at almost exactly 50 minutes, which was pretty good, and the players commented that it didn't feel that long, which is definitely a very good sign. I think I took over 10 minutes to teach the game though, which I feel was probably a bit long. I think this was partly because I am not yet used to explaining the game, but may also be a sign that the game is a bit fiddly.

The dynamic was interesting. One of the players quickly took to being a sort of MC, stepping through the turn order and starting discussion. This could have turned into an "alpha player" problem (where one player effectively dominates a cooperative game), but there was definitely discussion with input from all players, and when we talked about this afterwards, nobody seemed to feel that they were being railroaded or anything. I think that this game could easily suffer from having a dominant player, so I will need to consider whether I will address this or not.

My biggest problem with this game is now, I think, trying to get a meaningfully "difficulty arc", as you might call it. In this play through, the players had a fairly gentle start, then in the mid-game they felt that they were under serious pressure, before the last round or so eased off and allowed them to cruise home. From my position of just observing, and knowing what was likely to happen, I could see that the mid-game pressure was illusory, but it was amazing to watch (they felt that they were about to be punished for earlier decisions), and something I would really like to see happening in the game. Basically, what I would like to see is a tense ending, with a few points of tension, with partial release, through the rest of the game. 

We had a good discussion after the game, and I think that one of the biggest points to address is that it turned out to be way too easy to defend against each others' attacks, and the most obvious fix for that is to greatly limit - or maybe even remove - the supply of buildable defences. Without the city wall cards, there would be a lot more pressure and more difficult decisions to make. I might try that on its own (with tweaks to rebalance the decks to compensate) and see how that goes. There was also a turn-by-turn reveal of cards from an additional "wrath deck", which kinda worked, but was an extra thing that needed to remember an additional (simple) action each round, which was easy to forget, and I have a couple of thoughts about how to address this, though I may leave that until later.

After playing, the players asked for a reminder of what the game is called. I told them my working title, which of course is not exactly evocative of its theme. One of the players I had is actually a Greek speaker, and as the setting of the game is currently based on a mythical view of classical Greece, she had a suggestion for a title that we all liked.

As a result, the City State Co-op Game now has the new working title of "Sympolis", which apparently can translate as "cities together", which seems a great option. Thank you so much, Vilma!

Anyway, that was part of my Saturday afternoon; there was a lot more to the weekend.

I arrived on Thursday afternoon to help with the setup of the Playtest Zone. This is actually pretty light work, the hardest bit being deciding how to lay out the tables and chairs, and the rest being largely putting the trademark red cloths on the tables and sorting out the various bits of stationery we have. Other than that it's a good opportunity to say hello to a load of people - although many of them are busy setting up their own stands.

The rest of the days were spent working, mostly welcoming designers and players and trying to put them together, alongside a core team (five of us in total) plus a small army of volunteers turning up to do shorter shifts, and an extra who came to help whenever he had spare time. There were a few quiet spells (largely Sunday lunchtime, but a few other periods too) where we had to work to bring in potential players, but a lot of the time we were finding people just coming up and asking to play something, and far too often there was no space at that point. It's a shame when we can't seat people who are keen to playtest, but I guess it's a good problem to have.

Its-a me, standing by the Playtest Zone.

The way things work is that most of the tables are booked in advance for a period of either 3 hours or 90 minutes, but there are a few tables available to be booked on the day for designers who haven't been able to sort things out beforehand. It turned out that demand for tables greatly outstripped availability. A note for anyone who is considering joining us for playtesting at future events: seriously, book in advance if you can.

On the Friday evening was the designer-publisher networking event. This is an event that typically involves having a drink or two with fellow designers (my experience is minimum publisher attendance) and listening to a couple of talks, generally one from the event sponsor (Panda Game Manufacturing this year) and one from some other industry insider (past years have included luminaries like Alex Yeager and James Wallis). This year it was straight to the drinks and no talks. There was a point when someone was speaking over the PA, but the noise of conversation was so loud that most people didn't even seem to notice, let alone hear what was being said.

Other than that, my evenings were largely catching up with people and very little actual game playing. I can play games at other events, I guess. I managed to spend my breaks looking around the trade halls, and even managed to get out to watch the vikings telling a story, complete with illustrative acting, throwing of water at each other, and bad jokes.

For all the lack of game playing, and the fact that I always leave with aching feet and a befuddled brain, UK Games Expo is one of the big highlights of my year. Attendance at this year's event comfortably surpassed the biggest pre-Covid year (and Saturday seemed ridiculously busy), and I heard really happy noises from a lot of small traders. I'm already looking forward to the next one. 

Re-Exposed

Oh my, it has been too long! Part of the reason I started this blog was to keep myself accountable, if only to myself, and that all fell apart last autumn. Not because anything particularly bad happened - I just got out of the habit. And then, every month that passed without me posting again seemed to make it harder to get back onto the proverbial bicycle. 

But now, I'll write something and see if I can get back into the swing of it again.

As you may have heard, last weekend was UK Games Expo at the NEC, just outside of Birmingham and, as per last year, I went up to spend most of my time working in the Playtest Zone, an area that provides table space for designers to test their unpublished prototypes with players drawn from the expo attendees. I love helping out with this and seeing such a wide variety of prototypes on the tables; these days we even see good numbers of people who come specifically to play prototypes and some of these folk spend most of their day just hopping from table to table, playing and giving feedback.

The Playtest Zone in full flow on Friday

Apart from that I didn't have a lot of time or energy for other things, but I did manage to have a couple of pitch meetings with publishers, for two different games ("Grab Bag Zoo" and "Snails and Grails", if you are interested), each of which I designed with different co-designers, and I eventually was able to play a fun game designed by a couple of young lads, as well as joining in a game design brainstorm (a gamestorm?) with a group of other designers, which resulted in some fun other stuff. 

I was planning on doing some playtesting of one of my games, but that didn't properly work out due to a clash of commitments that cropped up, but I was touched and delighted when someone who had played Grab Bag Zoo at a previous event came and asked if he could borrow the prototype and try it with his friends. I wasn't able to follow their play properly, but it was interesting to just let them try playing with the series of challenge cards in the current version, that step you through the game rules and features over four games instead of having to explain everything up front.

Other major highlights included meeting a few more online friends who I hadn't met in person, which was awesome and delightful, hanging out with some new friends, and of course seeing those old friends I have missed through the pandemic.

And this is it, once again: for me UK Games Expo is not really about the games, it's about the people, who happen to be drawn together by a love of games. I rarely get to play very much when I go (and this year was no exception), but it is always a great reminder of what matters to me, why I like playing games and why I like designing games.

Anyway, this is just a quick post to try to get myself going again. Over the next few weeks I'm planning to start posting again about the various projects I have on the go at the moment and where they are heading. 

Expo-sure

 Another in my series of long-after-the-fact blog posts... 

So the weekend straddling the end of July and beginning of August was UK Games Expo, for the first time since 2019 and two months after the date it would normally have been held. A few months earlier, around the time when the new dates were announced, information was also circulated about how Covid-19 control measures would be in place and details would be announced nearer the date. Then, some time later, the UKGE website was updated to suggest that the controls would be essentially optional, and then over the following couple of weeks there were further updates that brought us to a state that more-or-less reflected the original "play with confidence" position, having passed through various states of confusion en route.

For the last few years, I have focused my visits to the Expo around Playtest UK and the playtesting area that is organised each year by the awesome Rob Harris, who has claim to being the primary Rob for these events, with me just slotting in as a backup. This year I went a little further and was one of the core team for the playtest zone, meaning I was essentially working there full time. I wasn't planning on any formal meetings with publishers this time, so this worked well for me overall.

The preview event in progress.
The yellow mats in the foreground are for the open play area
to encourage social distancing.

After setting up the playtest area on Thursday, I went to the "press preview" event, something I had not done before. Basically this is open to anyone with a press or exhibitor pass (I had the latter as a playtest volunteer), and is an area of tables where exhibitors can show their latest releases, etc., and have a couple of hours where they can chat with folk in a quieter and less cluttered environment than the trade hall. I'm not a press person in any sense, but it was nice to meet and chat with a few people about their games.

UKGE as a whole was significantly smaller than usual, with less trade hall space, bigger spaces between stands, and more unused spaces (though there was a nice area of picnic benches near the food stands in the main hall, which I appreciated), but the Friday at the playtest area felt as busy as usual. We did have fewer tables than usual and those we had were spaced out more, so clearly we weren't as busy, but there was a steady flow of players turning up and for most of the day, the game designers were not having to wait long to fill a game. This more or less continued for the weekend, but I think was particularly noticeable on the Friday.  We discussed this a bit and a few folk had the impression that a lot of people felt that there was less pressure to see everything in the trade hall (there was less, after all) and so were more available for playtesting. I don't know how true that was, but it was the subject of some pondering in general.

Not as packed as usual, but still a very big event by any other standard.

On Friday evening was the publisher-designer speed dating event, which I took part in a few years ago. This time I was dragooned in on behalf of Playtest UK to provide a little extra stewarding and general dogsbody effort. As it turned out, apart from helping to arrange tables there wasn't much I needed to do, so I was able to tour the room and have chats with most of the designers during down time - there were more designers than publishers in the room, so there were a few periods for each designer when they were just waiting for something to happen. It was interesting to see the variety of games being pitched, varying from a very toylike game that was really aimed at families with youngish kids (I think this was somewhat out of place given the publishers present) up to a fairly heavy thematic Euro. Hats off to all those presenting their pitches -- I hope at least some of them had some luck from their efforts.

After the speed dating I met up with some friends in the open play area, which was of a similar size to the trade hall and, somewhat unusually for my experience of these events, every time I went through there was plenty of space for anyone who wanted to play, even though there was always a good buzz of people there. Let's just say, I am glad to have finally been introduced to the epic trading game, Sidereal Confluence, but by that time of night my brain was struggling to keep up.

The Playtest Zone in full flow.
Note the pretty universal mask use and spacing between tables.

Saturday was pretty much more of the same during the day, but I did have the opportunity to do some of my own playtesting. Actually, one of my co-designers, Chris O'Regan, spent the morning running through several tests of our game, The Village on the River, and got some really useful feedback which we discussed a week or so later. Then in the afternoon I had a slot with a family (with adult kids) playing Grab Bag Zoo, the game I am working on with Mike Harrison-Wood. GBZ is a short, real-time cooperative game that went down really well with this family (they ended up playing the game TEN TIMES in a row!) but it was apparent that it is just too difficult and intense for the playing-with-younger-kids audience we would like it to work for.

Grab Bag Zoo - you can't tell from a still photo, but this 
got really quite loud and excited during play.

That evening was pretty chilled, going out for burgers with Rob Prime and then playing a couple of lightweight games that I had bought that day.

Finally on Sunday, after working at the playtest area for the morning, I met up with my family, who had come up for the final day as we have been doing for the last few years. This was the point that I actually had a chance to play a couple of demo games on trade stands with my daughter, buy a few extra things, and then go home, exhausted.

Of course, COVID-19 provided one final little game to play: on the way home, I got "pinged" by the official COVID app, telling me that I had been in close contact with someone who had tested positive for the virus and that I had to self-isolate for the next nine days. Fortunately I was able to work from home for that time, as was my wife, so it had little impact other than making me a bit stir-crazy and prompting me to learn how to make and drink the South American drink, mate, but that is another story. None of us tested positive or developed symptoms ourselves, and I haven't heard of anyone getting ill who I was knowingly in contact with, although I do a number of them were also required to self-isolate.

So, all in all, I am very glad to have gone to UK Games Expo. I admit I was a bit nervous beforehand, but it all turned out well, and in particular I got a lot out of the opportunity to see and catch up with a load of old friends and meet a few people who I have met online over the last year or so and had never met in person. It's sad that a lot of people didn't go, but given the coronavirus issues, I can't fault anyone for their decisions. Hopefully next year will be closer to normal, but for this year, a huge thanks to the organising team and volunteers for making the event probably as good as it could have been.

Expos and Pirates and Castles, Oh My!

That was quite some weekend! I was at UK Games Expo from Thursday afternoon (the day before it started) until it closed on Sunday afternoon, when it closed, and I am now home, tired but very happy about how things went.  Here are some only slightly organised thoughts.

I'll start with the most exciting part for me: I had a couple of meetings to pitch game designers to publishers, and both went extremely well, and the upshot is that Scurvy Crew and The Castle War are both now being evaluated by publishers to consider for publication.  This is still a long way from actually being published, or even a contract being signed, but it's great to even get this far.  I'm not going to say who the publishers are right now, but if anything comes of either of these, I will let you know what I am able.

The main focus for my days was, once again, the Playtest Zone, this time hidden in the back corner of the enormous Hall 1, where I was volunteering for all three of the mornings, and the main task was trying to match players up with designers at the tables, and be there to answer questions and offer general help.  This can be quite a challenge first thing in the morning, when most people at the convention are wanting to explore and see everything before settling down to play things, or they are specifically looking for the latest hotness, but later in the end, we tend to see people wandering in, looking for something to play, and the challenge is then to find a designer needing players. 

The games presented varied from hand-drawn early prototypes, right up to beautifully presented and professionally printed games that are ready to publish.  I often have a bit of a grumble about people using the space as a cheap way to promote their upcoming Kickstarter, of which there are always a few every year, but it doesn't really do any harm and it's probably not particularly efficient marketing. Also, more serious vetting of games would just antagonise people unnecessarily and would risk making it harder for new designers to get onboard, and that is against the ethos of the space.

I failed to take photos other than a couple of this playtest of Scurvy Crew.

I had a 90 minute slot for playtesting Scurvy Crew, during which I hoped to get a couple of plays through (it usually takes about 30 minutes), but in the event we only managed one play as one of my three players was finding the game confusing and hard going.  This was entirely my fault: I was watching the two players opposite me as I explained everything and they got on well with everything, but I didn't check the guy sitting next to me, who it turned out wasn't used to playing hobby games, so would have appreciated a more thorough explanation with fewer shortcuts. Eventually (rather too late) I realised what was going on, apologised and stressed that his misunderstanding was my fault and not his, and helped him through a couple of turns, after which he started to get more comfortable and make more solid decisions. 

Aside from the issue with the struggling player, the game played pretty smoothly and engaged the players who found a couple of different approaches to playing. The players gave a few useful pieces of feedback, but mostly gave me a little extra confidence in the game, which didn't fall apart in any real way.

Later in the afternoon I had another play (I'd count it as a play rather than a proper playtest) with a couple of friends who wanted to check it out, and I actually really enjoyed playing it without feeling that I had to take notes or feedback.  All good for the confidence.

On Friday evening there was the Designer-Publisher Networking Event, which is ostensibly an opportunity for designers and publishers to meet in an informal setting, but there were few publishers, and to be fair, I'm not sure many of them would have welcomed being hassled by a swarm of us rookie designers wanting to pitch games to them after a long and tiring day.  What it was in practice was a comparatively relaxed opportunity to have a drink and a chat with fellow designers to compare war stories, and a couple of interesting talks from Alex Yeager and James Wallis, both good speakers, and both with fun topics -- one of the games I bought in the trade halls was a direct result of one of the talks.

Aside from all this, I managed to have half-decent meals in the evenings (a definite improvement from previous years) and then spend some time with friends, old and new, playing a few games. These days it's proving not-too-hard to find gaming space in the NEC halls in the evenings (though still a nightmare at the Hilton end of the Expo), and I managed to stumble into playing with strangers on two separate evenings, which was nice.

Lots of people post pics of their "haul" from conventions, so here's mine.

So I reckon that this year was my best overall experience at UK Games Expo so far, probably helped somewhat by the fact that I was really comfortable and slept well in my hotel, another thing that rarely happens.  I'm really looking forward to next year, and need to get started on figuring out what games I'm planning to pitch at that point.

Let's Go Expo...

If you are in the UK and care about such things, you are probably aware that UK Games Expo is coming up at the end of this month.  I'll be heading up there once again and have been making plans, as is necessary. So, here we go (everything may change, but this is the plan so far)...

I'll be heading up to the NEC on Thursday and hopefully meeting and chilling with a few people on the eve of the event proper.  The show runs from Friday to Sunday, and I have volunteered to help out in the Playtest Zone for all three mornings, so you know where to find me (stand 1-184, apparently).

A pic stolen from the UKGE website. In a game of Where's the Wally, can you spot me?

I have meetings for a chunk of Friday afternoon, pitching some games. I'm not going all-in on pitching, but have been talking to a few publishers with the intention of slowly building up relationships.  Friday evening is the Designer-Publisher networking event from 9pm, before which I hope to have something to eat and maybe even play a game.

On Saturday afternoon I am booked in to playtest Scurvy Crew from 3 to 4:30. Hopefully that will be enough time to get a couple of play-throughs, given that the game usually takes about half an hour, and only a few minutes to explain.  If you fancy having a go, come on down! (Or you can collar me any other time you find me free.)  I may end up getting another playtest slot some time, but we'll have to see.

Looking forward to seeing lots of people in a couple of weeks -- and I may even get to play a few games!

Participating in War

Today I attended the Colours wargame show in the next town southish from where I live. This is my second time, and while I am not what anyone would describe as a wargamer (particularly when the focus in this context is on miniatures games), I have enjoyed both of my trips there, partly from browsing the trade hall and looking at the various games being run, and partly from joining in a couple of the participation games that take up most of the top floor of the show.

I only have very limited experience with these participation games, but I suspect there is something I can learn from them. They contrast quite a lot with demo games at a boardgame event, which would generally be done by, or on behalf of, a publisher or designer, where the aim is, when it gets right down to it, to sell you something.  What I have seen of participation games at wargame shows, while some are put on by publishers, most of them are actually run by wargame clubs and they are presented both as a service and as a way for the members of a club to show off what they can do -- and have fun doing it.

This picture brought to you by BlurryVision™
If it was clearer you would see a bunch of Jeeps driving around blowing stuff up.

Across the show there were games varying from very quick skirmishes up to epic battles with many hundreds (possibly even thousands in a couple of cases) of miniatures arrayed across a vast battlefield.  They are invariably presented beautifully, with great attention paid to the layout and scenery.  Some are designed to be quick to teach and playable in a manageable amount of time by casual players, and these are the only ones I actually have experience of, but I understand some of the bigger games just run through the day and allow players to turn up and take over a unit command for part of the time.

The games I have played (those more casual ones) seem to have been either simplified versions of published rulesets, or custom built.  These latter are probably closely based on something else, and even if they are not consciously, the general pattern of roll-to-hit, possibly followed by roll-to-defend, and/or roll-for-damage, is a familiar one that turns up in so many games that it doesn't require a big investment of time to set up.

Something I wish I'd asked was whether clubs take the same game around to multiple shows, or build something afresh each time.  I suspect there is something of a mixture in this.

What I really like about these games is that they were constructed with a particular audience in mind. The games I have played were targeted as people like me, who aren't deep into the wargaming world, and don't want to spend ages learning intricate rules. They provide an excellent window for me to see some of what there is out there.  I like also that they tend to focus clearly on one thing and, while they may have some wobbles about them, they generally do that one thing well.  This year I played one game where we cooperated to blow stuff up against an enemy controlled by a member of the club running the game, and another where we were tank commanders trying to be the one to kill an enemy tank, again controlled by an expert. Last year one game involved battling for treasure at the bottom of the sea -- with Lego! All of these felt clear, simple, and enjoyable.

I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with all this, or what it is I can learn here, but maybe it is just a general reminder that visuals matter, focus matters, context matters, and knowing your intended audience matters.

If anyone reading this has any experience playing or running a participation game at a wargame show, I'd love to hear from you in the comments. :)

Preparing for the Expo: 4 Weeks To Go

It's four weeks until the biggest event in the UK tabletop gaming calendar, UK Games Expo (1st to 3rd June), and again I am going for the full three days. Actually, I'm going up the day beforehand so I have an easier time on the Friday, and hopefully a bit of gaming the evening before the event starts for real. In the run-up there is a load of preparation I need to do.

The prototypes I'm planning on taking as they currently stand.
There may be some updates to come, but they'll look substantially like this.

So far, I have...

• Written to a couple of publishers to see if I can arrange a meeting to discuss my games, particularly Invaded at the moment. I should probably contact at least a couple more, but we're getting to the point where it may be a bit late.  I'm keeping the number of pitches I am doing deliberately small at the moment, concentrating on people I think would be a decent fit for at least one of my games, as I want to just start learning how to do this sort of thing, and I am too cowardly to really jump in deep right away.  I have, however, heard back from the publishers I contacted so far, so fingers crossed.
• Submitted a sell sheet (a 1-page document showing the key features and selling points for a game) for Invaded for consideration in the designer-publisher speed dating event. This allows designers to do 5-minute pitches to about a dozen publishers in close succession, but the designers invited to take part are selected by those publishers based on submitted sell sheets.  The application process is a little scary, but it does mean that, if you are selected, at least some of the publishers want to hear more about your game.  I decided to apply for this rather than for the "public pitch" session of the Wyvern's Lair as I think I would do better in this format.
• Volunteered for a couple of shifts at the Playtest Zone (unless things change, I'll be there on Friday and Saturday mornings -- come and say hello!) and for one of the evening events. I've been doing this for the last couple of years, and found it very rewarding, being a great opportunity to meet loads of talented game designers and see a lot of awesome prototypes, even if I don't get to play many of them!
• Booked my first playtesting slot for my own game: 15:00 to 16:30 on the Saturday, so please come by and play! The slot booking system opens early for volunteers, so we get first dibs on our first session, though there will be plenty more available for others when the bookings open up more generally in a few days. I have declared Scurvy Crew as the game I will be running, but I am starting to think about taking Drafty Valley now, as it has been developing well lately, and I would love to get some more feedback on it.
• Booked accommodation (actually I did this several months ago), which is quite important!
• Booked the necessary time off from work.

Things still to do include...

• Check and update prototypes and rules for all the games I will be taking with me.
• Create an up-to-date sell sheet for all the games I want people to know about.
• If I'm going to try contacting any other publishers, I need to do it very soon indeed.
• If I get selected for the speed dating, I'll really need to focus on that 5-minute pitch, and try not to panic. If I don't, then I still need to plan regular pitches.
• Enter a couple of games into the "No Ship Maths Trade" that is going on. This is nothing to do with game design at all, but I have some games to get rid of and I have never tried maths trades before (briefly, they are a way to use a computer to set up trading rings so you can give a game to someone who wants it, and receive a game you want in return from someone entirely different), so I figure it's worth a go.
• And, of course, pack all my necessary stuff and get up there.

I must be missing something, but I'm sure it'll all work out.

Let me know if you're going -- hopefully we'll be able to at least say hello some time.

Back from the Dragon Invasion

Saturday was a very long day, having to leave home early in order to drive to the next town to catch a train to get me to London, then detour on an indirect route around the underground due to line closures, get to Dragonmeet, run a playtest of Invaded, help out at the Playtest UK area, actually play a few games, and then make the return journey.  All pretty much powered by coffee and pasties.

Ready to play. Thanks to the wonderful Mr Dave Wetherall for the pic.

First order of the day was in getting to the venue in time to run a playtest of Invaded at my booked time of 10:00.  This wasn't a problem, but it turned out to be a bit tricky to get a table of players at the start of the day.  Two guys eventually came and volunteered and I decided that I would rather sit out and watch a two-player game than participate in a three-player run.

The game went well, with my volunteers taking very different strategies and having role-played discussions about the relative merits of resisting versus collaboration.  One of them did keep forgetting certain parts of the game (I need to examine whether that is a problem with the game, or not something to worry about), but the other seemed to get comfortable with it all pretty quickly and built a strategy to follow.  As is often the case, an aggressive approach against the colonial forces ended in disaster, but it would have actually not taken too much to go differently for things to have worked out better.  I think that fighting back is a strategy that is difficult to profit from, but it is possible, and those times it works out are great.

My main intent with this playtest was to try out my new way of dealing with strategy cards and controlling access to them: each has a value, and the total value of strategy cards you hold may not exceed the current colonial attitude score.  I'm not 100% happy with the way you have to add things up and compare them with a number on a chart, but it seems to work well overall, preventing one player from having easy access to the best cards, and allowing for some planning ahead, so it may well be worth the small amount of complexity.  The values I have assigned to the cards don't seem too far off the mark at the moment, but I'll need to do a load more playtesting to be sure of this.

The pacing of the game seemed pretty good though, and we took almost exactly an hour to get through the game, which ended half way through the fourth round.

So we're definitely making progress here, but I need to get more playtesting done to check how the pacing is really working out, and to find the imbalances in the costings of the strategy cards.  There's still this issue where a player who attacks the colonial power without sufficient preparation usually ends up getting into huge trouble very quickly.  My inclination here is to just let it go as a feature of the game.  I'm sure that this is going to be a controversial part of the game, so it'll be interesting to see what gets said when I finally start talking to publishers about it.

Apart from running a playtest of Invaded, I spent a little while looking around the rest of the convention, including the now separate trade hall, but didn't get much of a chance to stop and really smell the metaphorical coffee before I got back to spend the bulk of the afternoon helping out at the playtest zone.  It felt a bit harder to attract players to join in tests than it was last year, probably mainly because there was less footfall in the area where we were. But we managed to get plenty of people in, many of whom had come over specifically, which was great.

I got to play a few games myself, mostly after the closing of the trade hall and playtest zone, which was very welcome before heading home for a beer.

The Dragon of Hammersmith Returns

It's that time of year again. Next Saturday (2nd December) is the Dragonmeet games convention in London.  I really enjoyed going last year, so this year I'll be heading over once again -- and this time I'm planning to stay for at least a little while into the evening.

Once again I'm just yoinking an illustrative picture from the Dragonmeet website.
It belongs to them, not me.

I am planning to run a playtest of Invaded for part of the morning, and then help out at the Playtest Zone for the afternoon, leaving me a little free time around lunchtime, and then in the early evening. We'll see what I can get up to in that time. If you're planning on going along, hopefully we'll be able to at least say hello and exchange a high-five.

Back From Essen

After many years, I have finally popped my Essen cherry.  This is a big deal for me: I first heard about the event in the early 90's, and have promised myself ever since that one day I would go, but factors including finances, time, anxiety, and cowardice have always combined in various ways to hold be back.  This year, Cubicle 7, the publisher who have signed two of my games, asked if I would like to go along and help, and my very understanding wife gave me a nudge in the right direction, so I said yes, and off we went.

I spent most of my time on the Cubicle 7 stand with their team, Dom, Jon, and Becky, who are all jolly fine people to work with.  My task was to explain the basics of the non-roleplaying games on the stand to anyone who was interested.  This was mostly focused on the new releases, Cthulhu Tales, and the preview edition of my game, Giftmas at Dungeon Abbey, but there were also three Doctor Who games that I was covering as well.  Between them, it meant that I was talking an awful lot, but it was good practice to develop concise game explanations -- not actually a full rule runthrough on any of them, but intended to be enough to give a decent feel for what the game involves.

I did manage to look around the rest of the show during my breaks, and while I didn't get to play, and whoa! This is a huge show, making UK Games Expo look like a minor local event.  There were entire game shops with walls, windows and doors, within the halls, vast areas of demonstration tables, and some of the publishers had stages with cameras and large screens overhead, where presenters were hosting game shows to showcase their latest releases. All this time it was easy to just get swept along in the flow of a huge crowd on the move.

A small part of one of the halls on one of the quieter days!

One of the highlights of the event for me was selling out of Giftmas at Dungeon Abbey on day 3.  OK, so this was a very small print run, so the expectation (or at least the hope) was that we would sell out, but it was still amazingly gratifying and I owe a big thankyou to everyone who shelled out for a copy.  Given comments from people after the stock had gone, we would probably have been able to sell at least a few more if we had them.

And I owe an even bigger thankyou to the woman who came by the stall to tell me that she bought a copy the day before and had played it, loved it, and told all her friends about it.  Unfortunately we had sold out by this point so we couldn't sell more to her friends, but it was one of the most amazing experiences of the show.  I know that the game is sure to get criticism sooner or later, but the fact that at least some people are so enthusiastic makes it all worthwhile.

My favourite pic from the weekend and the source of much personal pride.

There were so many other highlights though, most of which actually involve interactions with people.  One of the big ones was meeting fellow designers published by Cubicle 7, Jeff Tidball, Francesco Nepitello, and Marco Maggi.  These are three of the nicest guys around as well as being great game designers into the bargain.  I was totally blown away when I spotted Francesco enthusiastically explaining about my game to someone he knew.

Then there was the guy who complimented me on my style of explaining games, which was really nice of him. And the high fives, handshakes, and fist bumps from so many other people I knew around the place -- and from all those I didn't know beforehand! There were also those funny moments, like when we were trying to arrange a team game of Cthulhu Tales with the designers only to realise that we had just sold our demo set so we couldn't.

SPIEL is different to other conventions I have been to in that it closes early every evening and kicks everyone out, but this means that there is a thriving fringe fair, with gaming areas set aside in many of the hotels, and parties and other events organised all over the town.  One evening I just crashed out in my hotel room to rest, but the other nights I was out and about, including a great Playtest UK meetup where we got to play a bunch of prototypes, including ones from some of our international friends. I didn't take a game along myself, and was very happy to just play and give feedback.

So, that was it.  I flew back home on Monday, absolutely knackered but happy to have been.  I'm sure I will go again, maybe next year, and maybe I will join the procession of game designers doing the rounds of pitching games to publishers.  That's a decision to make later.

Ich Gehe Nach Essen

I first heard about the SPIEL games show in the early nineties, when I was introduced to the joys of German games, and I have wanted to go ever since. In all those years, finances, time, confidence, and all manner of other factors and excuses have conspired against me going, but finally I get to go this year!

In case you don't know about the event, SPIEL (held in the town of Essen in Germany, and often just referred to as "Essen") is generally recognised to be the biggest board game show in the world.  There is some argument about whether GenCon (in the USA) is bigger, or is even a valid comparison, but that doesn't really matter, SPIEL is a huge event.  This is the event where hundreds of new games are launched each year, and thousands of geeks mingle with many thousands more families, all looking for the best new games and bargains.   It's also a place where freelance game designers take the opportunity to meet with publishers (pretty much every publisher worth noting has a stand) to pitch designs.

Image yoinked from the SPIEL website.

For my first visit to SPIEL, I'm not planning on pitching any games; the intent is mostly to get a feel for the place and, you know, just be there.  I'm travelling with Cubicle 7, the publisher who has signed my first two games.  Unfortunately the games are not yet ready, but hopefully it won't be too far into 2018 before they are available.  Anyway, I will be working at their stand for most of the time, so if you are going to Essen (between 26th and 29th October), please do pop round to Hall 6, stand C120, and say hello. 

It's all very exciting for me! 

Meeting Dragons

I have been meaning to go to the Dragonmeet convention for many years.  It is a one-day annual event that has been held in London for decades, and has a great reputation for being fun and friendly.  The focus has traditionally been roleplaying, but these days it seems to be a general tabletop gaming event.  Finally, this weekend I managed to make the trip.

Once again I totally failed to take a usable photo, so here's this year's t-shirt design, totally yoinked from the Dragonmeet website. I hope they don't mind.

I can't tell you much about the con overall as I spent most of my time in the Playtest UK area, but I can say that there was a good trade hall, which included spaces for gaming of various types (including the "best of Essen" tables and the playtest zone), and roleplaying games, seminars and other stuff was taking place somewhere or other.  Oh, and the venue was comfortable, reasonably spacious, had good toilets, and was only about 5 minutes' walk from the nearest tube station.

Anyway, hanging around the playtest area allowed me to see a lot of great looking prototypes, and managed to play a few of them: a game about building skyscrapers, a game based on running game shows (with a modified Monty Hall mechanism), and a game about rolling dice to build gene sequences.

I had taken along "My Name Is...", which I am now usually describing as an ice-breaker game of memory and mental agility, which seems to both scare and intrigue people.  We had two plays of the game with different groups (I joined in on one of them) and had very different experiences with them.

The first group provided a constant flow of questions, suggestions, arguments and interruptions, identifying quite a lot of issues that need thinking about.  There was one player in particular, who was quite assertive in poking at the game and at me, but it was in good humour and he was genuinely being helpful (and, pleasingly, on the feedback form gave the game top marks for "fun").  This group had some roleplaying of opinions that turned up on cards, and some fairly tight policing of the rules about when turns finish and challenges are allowed.

The second group was a great contrast, just grokking the idea of the game immediately (with one or two questions after starting) and playing in a really relaxed way.  A few turns in and it looked like this group were old hands, and I could just sit back and watch as they played at their own pace, effectively house ruling an easy-going attitude to the challenges.  I have to say that while the feedback from this group was less informative in itself, it was the best feeling in the world to just watch a group chatting and laughing about the game and (to my eyes) thoroughly enjoying it.  This tells me that the game as it stands definitely has an audience, and that I am not heading up a blind alley.  Of course, I need to make the game work for more groups than this one (though it definitely worked for the other group too), but it's a good start.

Overall this was a really good experience and a helpful session, and I have a few notes for things to experiment with, including some possible alternate titles.

I should also mention that last week I started a thread on this game on Board Game Geek, asking for help for card subjects, and had a few people giving some very useful suggestions (some of which made it into the card set I was using here), plus a really interesting idea to try making the game into something other than the love/hate a subject that it is now... I will be thinking about this as it could be really cool if I can figure it out.