BGDF Albany "Playfest"

So... now that I've had a full night of sleep, I'll let you all know how it went...

I really wanted to go to this meeting. How badly, you ask? Well, on Friday, I noticed an odor of gasoline as I was driving home from work. By the time I got home, all the repair shops were closed, so I couldn't get anyone to look at it until Saturday morning.

And wouldn't you know it, when the mechanic popped the hood and looked around the engine, he noticed gasoline leaking out of the engine. Ohno. An O-ring probably slipped out from around an injector. There was no way I was driving that car 300 miles.

That wasn't going to stop me, though! After much calling and haggling, I finally found a car available for rental. I grabbed my EZ-Pass from the old car, two of my prototypes, and off I went!

The drive took me two and a half hours, but there was very little traffic, and things went pretty smoothly. SiskNY was coming from Rochester, so he had a longer drive (four hours), but since a busted engine couldn't keep me away, I guess I stole a little bit of his thunder... :)

Tom lives in a nice, secluded suburb of Albany. I walked into their kitchen, and found Jeff (jwarrend), Mike (fanaka66), Steve (SiskNY), and Tom (nosissies) sitting around the table...

That above pic is from later, but you get the idea...

I'd missed Mike's game, which was apparently a kid's game that was scalable for different ages. They were just getting started on Tom's game, so I agreed to sit on the sidelines while my brain unscrambled from the drive...

Tom's game has an Old English name which I can't remember, but the alternate name is "gatekeeper." It consists of a couple of decks of cards, four pawns of the same color for each player, several colored rings, and a "board" of wooden card tiles.

I won't get into the game rules; I don't know how much the designers want me to blab about their games, so I'll describe the components and let them post follow-ups about the actual game rules.

The tiles look great, as you can see from the above picture. The game system was particularly impressive, because it was very open to lots of little house rules, which, along with the modular board, could provide lots of replay value. The game also offered a surprising amount of depth, as players started to figure out clever offensive and defensive moves. Tom's been working on this game for two and a half years, and it certainly shows.

Tom also got some good feedback about suggested house rules, board modularity, and card power. Still, it struck me that this game was awfully close to being done.

When they finished, I suggested that since Jeff was going to have to leave early, that we play Disciples next. He couldn't argue with that, and brought it out. Unfortunately, I forgot to get a picture of it... maybe next time?

The rules to the game are available from the GDW, though they've changed since then. I wasn't sure what to expect; I knew that Jeff was sick of Bible trivia games, and wanted to make a game that simultaneously had a Christian theme and strong, deep gameplay. Being an unreligious person myself, I was curious to see if the game holds up for non-Christians.

The game occupies a peculiar intersection, as it is designed for both Christians moderate-to-heavy gamers. Had Jeff screwed this up, it would offend both groups! I'm happy to report that this isn't the case; I think it will appeal to both sets, with the only catch that they be open-minded. There are some gamers who will hear "Christian game" and refuse to play, thinking of players rolling dice, answering Bible Trivia questions, and moving tacky, smiling Jesus pawns. And as Jeff has mentioned, there will be some Christians who might not like the idea that a player can score points by betraying Jesus.

Nevertheless, the rest of us can enjoy a game that is a game about Biblical times, and with a good amount of depth. Reflecting on it now, I wonder if having more available Deed cards will offer a more significant choice to players... but I don't want to make any real suggestions until I play the game a second time (hint hint), and get a better feel for it.

After Disciples, everybody had brought something to the table except Steve and me. The game I wanted to test was also fairly heavy, so since Steve brought a lighter game, I suggested he bring it out first to give our brains a break. He couldn't argue with that either, and reached into his Stanley organizer and brought out a couple of boxed, shrink-wrapped games.

"Very nice, Steve," we said. "Where did you get these manufactured?"

"I made them myself," he said, and there was the requisite pause as our jaws hit the floor.

Steve definitely won the Best Game Bits award. The two games - a standalone card game about animals, and a Sherlock Holmes CCG - look staggeringly good, good enough that you'd be forgiven for thinking that they were part of a 1000+ copy production run. No, I didn't get pictures of them, clever me. It turns out that Steve has figured out how to shrink-wrap without a shrinkwrapper, and laminate without a laminator. He can't mass-produce games this way, but his completed prototypes simply look astounding.

We wound up playing a newer game of his, Ghost Hunter, that hadn't been as tested as his more polished-looking games. Therefore, the components to this game aren't as impressive (which, if you're scoring at home, is the proper way to do it... FIRST you make a quick, cheap prototype, THEN you work on the rules, and THEN you make a nice-looking prototype), but they were quite functional.

The game was light and pleasant, with plenty of cards and an oft-rolled 20-sided die. This is really a game system, with lots of opportunity for expansions and variant rules. We offered ideas to give the game more of an arc, or even a narrative. It's got a good amount of potential, and I'm curious to see how it evolves... and how the polished prototype will look!

Jeff had to leave after the game, and dinner was on its way. I had actually brought two games, and I suggested we play my lighter, quicker game first. I'd mentioned this game, Body Parts, a couple of times in the forum first. Its last playtest was particularly brutal, and I'd come up with a simplified, quicker ruleset since then. I was curious to see how the game played.

It took about an hour to play, but that included the rules explaination and a break when the pizza was delivered. The game would have probably played in about 40 minutes otherwise, which is perfect. It was one of those things where I wondered why I'd stuck with the older ruleset - this one was clearly much quicker, easier to understand, and more fun to play, while still offering the same challenge and choices. It needs more testing, but I feel like I'm on the home stretch.

We polished off the rest of the pizza. Mike had to leave, so that left Steve, Tom, and me. I brought out Wag the Wolf, which is - don't laugh - my Doomed Civ entry. That I never completed. Man, I hate deadlines.

I was a little nervous about this, because this was the game's first actual playtest. I'd solo tested it, but because it has a deduction element, I really had no idea how it actually played. I also didn't know if the ruleset was overly complicated, or if the central concept of the game (which is a little weird) would be too difficult to teach. And since it was my first playtest, it was also my first explaination of the rules to others. So I was a little worried.

First off, I was absolutely shocked to see that the game ended - rules and all - in less than an hour. That's probably a good thing, and it "felt" like a full game experience, but I wonder how much the game would slow down with its full complement of five players.

Steve won the game in a blowout, and judging from that along with my solo playtests, I will probably have to change the scoring to make things a little closer. But people enjoyed the game, they caught onto the central mechanics quickly, and they were comfortable with it. I hope to have the game in better shape in two weeks for PowWow!

One other note... Tom's wife Maya (or Maia?) floated in and out during the entire evening. She is also a gamer, and does lots of playtesting with him. She has a remarkable talent; she'd miss the rules to a game, walk into it in the middle, and immediately understand the game's rules in five minutes. She was able to figure out the gameplay to both of my games very quickly without sitting in on the rules, which impressed the heck out of me. A couple of their friends dropped in during dinner, and they were also gamers... man, I wish I had an army of playtesters that close to me!

Steve left after this game to get started on his four-hour drive back to Rochester, and I started packing up. I stayed for a little while longer, chatting about games with Tom and Maya. I mentioned the Knizia game High Society, and they said they had bought it at a GameKeeper closing sale, but it hadn't escaped the shrinkwrap yet. I offered to teach it to them.

What a great way to end the night! High Society is a game that amazes me with its simplicity. It's an auction game that forces you to manage your money, because the poorest player at the end of the game is eliminated, even if he/she has the most points! And that's how the game ended... Tom and Maya ended the game with $25 million, and I had $26 million, so I won by default. It's a peculiar rule twist, but since the game only takes 20-30 minutes to play (and this game ran long, because we went through the whole deck... the very last card in the deck was the fourth red card), I think they enjoyed it.

And with that, I thanked them profusely and headed back to New Jersey.

I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to play Mike's game. I understand that it went well; perhaps next time?

I'm looking forward to doing this again soon!

I'm glad you were able to make it and meet Jeff, Tom, Mike, Steve and Maya. Didn't you guys get a chance to play Tom's The Shrubs?

I'm glad I could make it, and if only we could supply a wormhole for you to fly through and join us! Alas, The Shrubs didn't make it to the table; I was surprised and lucky to have two of my games hit the table.

We had the general post in the "Playtest" forum, and once we had a quorum, it was mainly e-mails from there.

I hope so, and I look forward to it!

You know, I hope I didn't seem like I was blowing them off. I may have been a little nervous, and perhaps I wasn't acknowledging them as much as I should have. I hope that they come by next time, so that we can have more guinea pi... um, playtesters! :D