Jun 3, 2006

Recompile

A couple of weeks ago I went to a board game day at a friend's house. I wasn't planning on doing any playtesting, just wanted to have some fun. While waiting for the bulk of the invitees to arrive, we played some filler games. After a couple of rounds of Guillotine, I felt like playing something else, so I suggested we try a round of Programmer. As a few people arrived at that point it ended up being a 6-player game, and I just watched. I was glad I did, because what I found was interesting. Even in this relatively simple version of the game, about half of the people had difficulty predicting what the program would do to the token. So I think this version is the closest to what will be the final version, even though it was turned down by Out of the Box Publishing and Mayfair Games. A couple of the people there did spontaneously express further interest in the game and said they knew people who would probably like it, so I let them know they could download it from here. That's a good sign. Unsolicited positive comments and actions are always much more reliable than ones prompted by a question. So I am quite pleased with it. Soon I'll let you guys see the other, more complicated version of Programmer, since I've decided that it was going down the wrong path.

5 comments:

  1. It's always nice to get positive feedback. How stable is Programmer? How long have you been designing it for?

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  2. There are only a couple of small things that I think will see a change, if at all. The first prototype I made for Programmer was sometime during Summer 2005, but I had sketched out the major concepts and started making cards about 4-6 months before that.

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  3. My first game took two years to solidify, but it hasn't really changed in the last two years now so it's very stable. Good luck with Programmer! Looking forward to hearing how you get on with publication.

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  4. Thank you. How have things gone with your design?

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  5. Pretty well, considering it's my first. I'm self-producing a small limited-edition run now. Should be ready in August. Ask me again then ;-)

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