Dreamation was a rousing success.I arrived early Saturday morning and headed for the Strategic Space booth. Mark Salzwedel, founder of Strategic Space, needed help staffing the booth for a couple of hours, so I volunteered.
I had placed a playtest for Municipality on the convention schedule for Saturday afternoon at 2:00pm. I headed over, got the paperwork from the convention staff, and set up. At first, things weren't looking so promising. 5 minutes after the scheduled start time, no one had yet shown up. Playtests aren't allowed to have pre-registrations, so it is impossible to know if people are late or no one was interested.
Soon, though, someone did arrive. It was someone I had known for years from these conventions. It turns out that he is a publisher and he wanted to playtest Municipality. My good friend Andrew Parks, of Quixotic Games, had mentioned the game to this publisher, whom I will refer to as "Gamma". Andy playtested Municipality last month and apparently said some nice things about it, because it got Gamma to want to see the game.
The playtest itself went well enough. He seemed to be really into the Political Capital mechanic that's become the heart of the game. He thoroughly enjoyed trying to bluff people into spending their Political Capital by bidding even when he didn't want to win the bid. That was a great sign. Unfortunately, one of the relatively new rules, money being worth points at the end, was too overpowered and overwhelmed the normal score. We agreed I should tone down the value of the money for the next version.
Despite that hiccup and a few more suggestions, both of them seemed really positive about Municipality. When I complete the game in a few months (knock on wood), I will definitely contact them.
Geoff Engelstein, who does a segment on The Dice Tower, watched a good portion of the playtest. He said it looked interesting. It may have been out of politeness, but it's always nice to have people compliment your design in front of a publisher. :-)
After the playtest, I went and played a game of Alhambra (came in distant second) and spoke with Andy for a while. I find that during the Dreamation and Dexcon conventions, I spend less than a third of my time playing games. Most of my time is spent socializing, which is often more fun than the tournament-driven, structured gaming schedule.
A bunch of us then went to dinner. Afterwards, I also showed the publisher Titans of Industry, which, in an astonishing coincidence, arrived in the mail the previous day. The previous publisher to whom I had sent it returned the game without comment. I wish they had given some feedback about it, but I do appreciate them returning the prototype.
Anyway, after giving publisher Gamma a quick overview of Titans of Industry, we agreed I would e-mail them the rulebook to look over. After that, we'll see if they're interested in moving forward with it.
Saturday was a very good day. It was one of my best days as a game designer wannabe in a long time.
To be continued . . .
"apparently said some nice things about it, because it got Gamma to want to see the game."
ReplyDeleteAnd THIS is why we go to conventions. That face-to-face, word 'o mouth connection works so much better, doesn't it? Great news!
"We agreed I should tone down the value of the money for the next version."
Meh. So it goes. There is one major publisher that I meet with at every convention to show him my latest game. He's very gracious. We both go into the meeting knowing that he won't ever publish any of my games - the games I make don't fit his portfolio - but we enjoy kicking the tires on my games. He has great insights and a gazillion connections in the industry. From me, he gets some interesting twists on mechanics and fabrication - e.g. I noticed that the wooden pawns in one of my games tended to shift when the board was nudged. My solution was to put small magnets in the pawns, and then paint 3 coats of magnetic paint on the board before I apply the surface graphics.
"Despite that hiccup and a few more suggestions, both of them seemed really positive about Municipality. When I complete the game in a few months (knock on wood), I will definitely contact them."
I hadn't thought of presenting a prototype that was still under development. That's a clever way to make early course corrections. I've always waited until I have a complete and play-tested game before I roll it out.
"I spend less than a third of my time playing games. Most of my time is spent socializing, which is often more fun than the tournament-driven, structured gaming schedule."
I just spent 3 days at GenCon and 3 days at Origins this year. I got to actually play 2 games at each convention that weren't my own. It was wall-to-wall hustle. Quite a change from years past, but that's the price, I suppose.
"The previous publisher to whom I had sent it returned the game without comment. I wish they had given some feedback about it, but I do appreciate them returning the prototype."
Gaaah! Don't you hate that? The best rejection I ever got was from Steve Jackson games. It came along with a page and half of thoughts and recommendations. They had clearly given my game a thorough playtest, if not several. Their comments were encouraging and constructive.
"Saturday was a very good day. It was one of my best days as a game designer wannabe in a long time."
Best feeling in the world, isn't it? I found myself making strange little squeaky guttural noises - sort of a non-verbal "finally / yeah / w00t / whew!" grunt thing. Progress. Nothing better. Very happy for you.
I wouldn't recommend presenting too early in the process, but if you fee it is nearing completion, I feel it is okay to begin showing it for feedback purposes. It can help you focus your remaining development time on what the publisher thinks are the problems.
ReplyDeleteThat's great that SJG sent you back such thorough feedback. I wish more publishers did that. If my design has problems, I'd like to know about them.
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