hwango

Gaming Weekend has come and gone. I ran my demo/tournament for The Spoils, and I think it went pretty well in spite of some problems getting started. Of the seven people that signed up, two failed to show up at all, and a third told me that due to something else coming up he wouldn't be able to come. However, I got two extra people I wasn't expecting, and managed to convince someone who was watching another game that it would be fun to come try out the new CCG and get free stuff. Everyone seemed to have fun. Five of the players hung around afterwards to trade with each other to try to improve their decks, so that seems to imply that they're interested enough to play again. I'm happy I got to play in my own demo. I forfeited my prizes so things wouldn't seem shady. I really just wanted 6 more packs and to introduce more people to the game in the hopes of having someone to play with. I had a lot of fun with the game at GenCon, and then hadn't played it since. Bleh. I got some nifty stuff in my packs, including the much-sought Luteoderm Goliath. I'm not sure it's actually good, but it sure seems good. If nothing else, the idea behind the art is awesome. I even got a second One-Legged Hopping Pogo Bear.

After things were done with The Spoils, I convinced some people to try the latest game of my own design. This would be game #6, though it's only the second one to be taken to the prototype stage. Three of the others still have major work to be done, and game #3 had most of its concepts gutted to fuel another, more interesting idea. I was amused that one of the people I asked suddenly remembered me from when I was playtesting game #1 at Gaming Weekend a few years ago, bribing people with chocolate to try it. I offered her some M&M's to try Game #6, but she went off to do something else anyway.

Anyway, I got the idea for Game #6 while driving home from playing games last Sunday, and had a working prototype printed out 4 days later after about 18 hours of work. I'm amazed and extremely pleased that the trial games I got in at Gaming Weekend went as well as they did considering how little time I've put into this one compared to some of my other games. Everyone seemed to agree that the concept is solid, and that it has a lot of potential. Even more important, people appeared to actually enjoy the game even while it had some kinks to work out. I played it again with friends this Sunday, and most of the feedback from those games was positive too, even though our first game went somewhat badly. Still, it seems like this one could work, so I'm hoping to get in more testing and tweak this one until it's good enough to submit to game companies.