Holy crap, what a weekend. Last Thursday to Sunday have been the best 4 days of 2013 for me to date. I had decided to take 3 of my game prototypes to FanExpo this year. I shared half a table with another buddy of mine from my creative group TYL United. Preparation wise, I was not as ready as I thought I needed to be. Presentation wise, I had everything ready with regards to rules and prototypes for people to look at and play. Expectation wise, I had no bloody idea what to expect.
On day one I was approached by a game publishing group from Cincinnati. They showed huge interest in my number-puzzle game NUPUGA. They loved the colours, the simple rules and the varying ways to score. A light blend of strategy, luck and hand management offered a fun experience. One of the guys was eager to play it and mentioned his mother would be interested in playing such a game.
The 3 games I felt were strong enough to present at the show were StormGate, NUPUGA, and Word-a-bout, which I've been designing publicly here on BGDF.
StormGate (formally known as Storm the Gate) is a chess-like variant I've created to take a 1hr game of chess and reduce it to 10 minutes. It's more of a capture the flag game than anything else. It also doesn't use chess movement rules per say. That game was really popular with anyone who played chess. Everyone wanted to playtest that game. I know for next time to bring multiple boards and pieces and show off the customization feature of the game.
NUPUGA, in my eye, was the primary draw to my table for the younger crowd. Everyone would gravitate to the pieces, pick one up, then look at the demo board to see if they could figure out how it all fit together. After a little explanation, most of them picked it up. I was playing with an 8 yr old who like the idea of matching numbers to create colour and number combination. "It's a very intuitive game", as per 2 veteran game testers and "looks fun to play with the family. Feels great to the touch", as per another parent. NUPUGA went over well with the designers and testers in the open game room. I'm pleased to have been able to have properly tested games to showcase to the public and to the gamers and designers at the show. After having my games played by other designers (veterans at protospeils in the GTA and frequent game testers) I got a ton of creative feedback on my designs. Some hitches I had with scoring were exposed and remedied with solutions that didn't break the core of the game.
Word-a-bout did okay. I was surprised that it didn't get the attention I thought it would, but then again, possibly wordies aren't all that large of a group at this con. Or if they are, Word-a-bout plays a lot different to other vocabulary games out there. There were a lot of people who love Scrabble®, Boggle, Crossword and the likes that were so-so about a new game using fragments instead of letter manipulation. As expected, it takes someone a little time to get use to the game, and though scoring is simple, they don't necessarily see the fun in the game. I've played Scrabble since I was 10yrs old with my parents and I don't fine that game "fun" by definition. It's challenging and intriguing. Those interested in the challenge of spelling words with fragments to maximize their score within a 45 sec timeframe loved the idea. Especially the time limit concept. Others who want to ponder and build words didn't think it was all that great. All opinions are fair and deserve respect.
I'm truly grateful to all that have shown their support in my gaming endeavour and I hope to get NUPUGA up and running on KickStarter this coming November. To find out more about my game inventions and follow the development of my passion, please visit facebook.com/ADLinteractive and keep up to tabs on other random gaming ideas on my development blog ADLinteractive.tumblr.com.
