Crash and Burned

I was at a small convention this last weekend called Celesticon in Northern California. I was there to push my game and try out some prototypes I've been cooking, My buddy had told me about this and wanted to go, but he ended up finding a new place to stay (so he was moving that weekend) and I ended up going up with my wife.

Within Celsticon was an event called Celestispiel, which was specifically about prototyping. Personally, I was excited to go. I had been cooking up a couple of game designs, but had shelved some of them, this would be a great reason to bring them out to test.

My first game was a micro version of the game I was currently releasing. It was worked on, tested lightly, then shelved. I was excited about doing this primarily because I was inspired by playing Eminent Domain: Microcosm and I wanted to try and do the same thing with my game.

The second (well there was several) was an expansion to my released game. It is a standalone expansion that explored other things in my "universe". I had worked on this months before, but this would be a great opportunity to test.

So my wife and I drove overnight Friday to Saturday, we barely made it to he orientation breakfast. There were a lot of people there and it looked promising. Once play testing started I decided to play some games; I wasn't too confident about my games just yet.

I played a game about survival, which wasn't bad. Settlers of Catan-ish (using a similar hex board), but focusing on surviving in the wilderness. It seemed pretty far along.

I played an ice cream game where you had to setup combos of flavors. It was in prototyping stage, but was alright. Had some good screw-you mechanics and some a-ha moments.

I also played Booze Barons, a game currently on Kickstarter about running different types of alcohol during the Prohibition Era. That one wasn't bad.

So I decided to throw my lot in with my micro game. I though it was a light enough to get someone to play.

I started explaining the rules to this person. He started asking questions. Let's just say that this is where I crashed. I don't know if it was the driving that did it or the fact I this was a game I haven't worked on in a few weeks. Whatever it was, I answered some questions, but some of them I just...couldn't answer. He asked things like, :Why should I go here?", "This doesn't make sense, this should be a +1". I even stopped for a moment and I just explained that this was a micro game of my original and that I was assuming that he knew the original game. He responded, "I don't want to play your other game, I want to play this game." I was blanking so much on my game that he asked the question, "Did you make this yesterday?"

"No..." I whispered. There was nothing I could say at that point to convince that guy otherwise, in my opinion.

That hurt. I felt defeated. Not only could I not answer these questions, I was at a crossroads on whether or not to just play the game. I knew I had something here, but why couldn't I answer any of this guy's questions about my game? Maybe it was me...maybe it was him. Regardless, I was speechless...and I was stuck.

And at that moment, I just stopped. I didn't even play the game...I don't think the guy even wanted to play my game.

And it stuck with me...into that next morning. When I had woke up the next day, I recalled all the questions the guy asked...and I suddenly knew all the answers! But obviously it was too late.

I mean, I'm the one with a game that's about to be released, I'm the one teaching game theory in college, and I just...tanked. Bad.

So why am I posting about this? Simple, I know many of us have gone through similar situations. Sometimes it's outside factors that make you crash and burn, but in the end it's our love for our game that pushes us. I can't stop because I failed miserably with someone, it just means I have to be better prepared when I test it next time...probably a good night's sleep would help.

I guess writing this is a way for me to let this go. For me, it's a call to be better prepared next time; I had never crashed like that before. But I suppose it was bound to happen.

Anyways, if you've got this far, thanks for reading. I know many of you on here just troll...maybe the guy that I was talking about is on here...who knows? I'm not here to slam him, I'm here to learn from my experience and grow.