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So, it's been over a month now since Protospiel Milwaukee. I usually get these out the next week, but this spring has been super busy (both my older sons were in a performance of The Wizard of Oz that took up a ton of everyone's time in April). As usual, I had a great time and played some great games. There were a number of friends that couldn't make it, which was bittersweet. I missed seeing them, but on the other hand it meant I got to meet a bunch of other great designers and play their games.
In all, I played 10 games (well, one was just a brainstorming session) by 12 different designers. I had 4 of my games played: Beard Snacks twice, 8 Seconds twice, Race to the Moons once, and MiniSkull Quests for part of a game. I played other designers' games for about 12.75 hours and had my games played for about 5.5 hours (plus rules and feedback on both sides).
Here's a recap of the weekend up in Milwaukee. As usual, I'll include the designer, who I played with, and also three ratings, from 1-5. The first is how close to finished I felt the game was. A 1 means it was a super early prototype and a 5 means it was very close to publication ready. The second is how fun the game was in its current state. A 1 means it needs a lot of work and wasn't really playable or much fun at all. A 5 means I had a great time playing and would love to play again. Finally, the third number is the potential the game has of becoming a really great game. A 1 means I wasn't a huge fan of the game (luckily there weren't any of those) and a 5 means I thought the game was pretty awesome.
So a rating of 2-2-5 would mean that it was a pretty early prototype, wasn't a whole lot of fun yet, but had quite a bit of potential to be a pretty good game.
Title: Beard Snacks
By: George Jaros
Played with: JT Smith, Maxine Ekl, Keegan Whitia
Game Time: 1 hr
Beard Snacks is one of my newest games and it's been playing great so far. This game played very well, again in just about an hour. Feedback was overall pretty good. All mechanics work great; there's just a bit of a mismatch between the theme and depth - the theme suggests a lighter game than it is, even though it's not very complex. Talk quickly turned to who might be interested in publishing a game like this. That made me feel great since this is only the second Protospiel the game has been played at!
Title: Roll Player Adventures
This is a game that I've been super excited about and was thrilled to be able to play a prototype. We only played the intro adventure/story. Keith was mainly testing out how easy it was for new players to learn the game through the tutorial, which adds information and mechanics as you go. Even in a very basic adventure the story was interesting and fun. We could really see how a larger adventure would offer a TON of options for different story arcs, ways to develop characters, and plenty of choices. One of the cooler mechanics was how you can use various items at different locations to find out what they do, even combining two items together to see what happens when you use both at the same time. The dice mechanic for resolving encounters felt thematic in a Roll Player way, too (encounters had some similarities to how bombs are disabled in FUSE). I really can't wait for this one to be finished. It's going to be a HUGE hit! There's still lots of story to write, but the fact that the game uses everything from Roll Player in some way, even letting you use characters created in Roll Player for your adventures, is really, really awesome.
This was just a brainstorming session to talk about some of the changes to the game in the months since I played it at Protospiel Chicago and some ways to do scoring so that some scoring is secret and hidden, but some is public and earned incrementally throughout the game. I really like where this game is headed and can't wait for the chance to actually play it again.
Afternova is a game being designed by the same team that designed Crypt (one of my favorite games of this year so far). Unfortunately this one didn't quite work for me. Fortunately the version I played was a new variant that they were testing out. The game is about collecting resources from various planets. You'll bid on mercenaries that will help you with upcoming jobs, then have to complete those jobs by cooperating with other players at the table. There were some interesting mechanics, but I didn't feel that they worked particularly well together. Hopefully later updates resolved some of the issues (they're still working on the game - I've seen updates on Facebook).
Title: Dogs v. Cats (or Dogs & Cats or Dogs or Cats)
Icelandic Salesman was a pick-up and deliver game about buying and selling goods in Iceland while trying to avoid bad weather. Each round more and more of the roadways between the towns would get snow and eventually ice, preventing movement. The game was interesting, though not exceptionally groundbreaking. The mechanic for adding snow to the routes was a bit fiddly, but we talked about some really great solutions. I'm curious to see how this game continues to grow and evolve.
In the Loop is loosely thematically about Chicago's el-trains (the elevated train system that runs throughout Chicago's downtown). It's a puzzly tile drafting game where you score points by drafting tiles that allow you to connect tracks matched by color. The game didn't really do much for me though. I felt the drafting aspects of the game (sometimes you have the option of swapping out tiles, sometimes you don't, etc.) were unnecessarily complicated, while the luck of being able to draft tiles that actually fit into the patterns emerging on the board made the game more about luck than strategy or puzzle solving. I like the idea of this game, but it seems very far along in its development process so I think it would take a major reworking to iron out the flaws. I loved the theme though!
Title: Race to the Moons
Legacies is quite the monster of a game. It's a game (not a legacy game though) that spans three hundred years. The idea is that each player is a character that wants to leave a legacy. Over the course of three centuries (rounds) players will use a series of successors to work on building their character's fame, money, and more through investing, creating heirlooms, and building relationships. Mechanically and thematically the game is great. I did feel that there was a mismatch between some of the mechanical and thematic aspects though. For example, you gained money by having your own heirlooms, but fame by having other characters' heirlooms. Thematically I felt it should be the other way around (I want my own items to become famous, but I can earn money by having other famous people's stuff). Overall though I loved the game and think it has a bright future. I can really see this having an incredible aesthetic presentation that will look amazing on the table.
I thought 8 Seconds was a finished game last year. Then I played it at Protospiel Chicago and got a great idea after some discussion. That only changed the game for the better, but I thought it was done again. And again I was wrong! Feedback I got from this playtest was that the game felt slow for the theme, the Golden Buckles were just more of the same and didn't really add anything to the game, and rolling poorly was boring. We talked about a few options for how to change some of that, but didn't really come up with any great solutions. But it really got me thinking about the game. In the 5 weeks since I've tried a few changes to the Golden Buckles. I've added cattle brand symbols to the bulls and tried adding a set collection aspect to them. That didn't work out the way I had hoped, because I made the Golden Buckles a bit too difficult to acquire. Now I have a new, simpler way to gain Golden Buckles, while still using the set collection aspect of the cattle brands (I'll hopefully test that out next week). I also thought of a way to have rolling clowns actually help you out in the game (you'll earn some money for helping out the clowns, plus learn some tricks that can help you on future turns). However the biggest change is a new speed variant that I've been working on! It removes the betting element, but players play simultaneously, rolling dice frantically trying to ride as many bulls as they can in 8 minutes. It's been working out wonderfully! I don't want it to replace the main game, but it does add a way to play that people have been asking for for a long time!
Title: Junkyard Robots
Title: Unnamed Game (Chingles?)
I tried out Beard Snacks with the Beard Bling expansion I had been wanting to test. This was the first time I played with the expansion components. Overall the base game played well again, but the expansion content didn't really add enough. We liked the hidden goal cards, especially the ones that provided longer term guidance, not so much the ones that were short term end game goals. The beard enders seemed like they'd just prolong the game too much. And the Beard Bling was fun, but didn't fee like it added much. Rather it added more fluff to the deck, making it harder to get your food for having snacks and meals. There were a few action cards that we really liked though, so I think I'm going to put those into the game with maybe 1-2 more of each type of food card. Then I'll move the bling to the non-morsel space cards and use those as the Beard Bling set collection element.
This is the same game I played earlier in the weekend and it got a ton better in just a few days! I enjoyed this play immensely, even more than when I played at Protospiel Madison. The clunky animal rescue mechanic was gone, play was streamlined a bit, and some fun wild cards (the 1s in each suit) really changed things up a bit and added to the player interaction. The name keeps changing, as does exactly how the scoring works, but I think the gameplay is very solid right now and there are several very workable ways for scoring the game. This is really going to be a hit someday!
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In all, I played 10 games (well, one was just a brainstorming session) by 12 different designers. I had 4 of my games played: Beard Snacks twice, 8 Seconds twice, Race to the Moons once, and MiniSkull Quests for part of a game. I played other designers' games for about 12.75 hours and had my games played for about 5.5 hours (plus rules and feedback on both sides).
Here's a recap of the weekend up in Milwaukee. As usual, I'll include the designer, who I played with, and also three ratings, from 1-5. The first is how close to finished I felt the game was. A 1 means it was a super early prototype and a 5 means it was very close to publication ready. The second is how fun the game was in its current state. A 1 means it needs a lot of work and wasn't really playable or much fun at all. A 5 means I had a great time playing and would love to play again. Finally, the third number is the potential the game has of becoming a really great game. A 1 means I wasn't a huge fan of the game (luckily there weren't any of those) and a 5 means I thought the game was pretty awesome.
So a rating of 2-2-5 would mean that it was a pretty early prototype, wasn't a whole lot of fun yet, but had quite a bit of potential to be a pretty good game.
Friday, April 5, 2019
By: George Jaros
Played with: JT Smith, Maxine Ekl, Keegan Whitia
Game Time: 1 hr
Beard Snacks is one of my newest games and it's been playing great so far. This game played very well, again in just about an hour. Feedback was overall pretty good. All mechanics work great; there's just a bit of a mismatch between the theme and depth - the theme suggests a lighter game than it is, even though it's not very complex. Talk quickly turned to who might be interested in publishing a game like this. That made me feel great since this is only the second Protospiel the game has been played at!
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By: Keith Matejka
Played with: Rob Huber
Game Time: 1:15 hrs
Prototype Rating: 3-5-5
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Title: Mechanations
By: Brennan Aldridge
Brainstormed with: Brennan Aldridge, Rob Huber, Andrew Nerger
Game Time: 1 hr
Prototype Rating: 3-n/a-5
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Title: Afternova
By: Andrew Nerger and Jeff Chin
Played with: Andrew Nerger, Brennan Aldridge, Maxine Ekl, Rob Huber
Game Time: 1 hr
Prototype Rating: 3-2-3
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By: Maxine Ekl
Played with: Maxine Ekl, Rob Huber, Brennan Aldridge, Andrew Nerger
Game Time: 1 hr
Prototype Rating: 3-3-5
I played this first at Protospiel Milwaukee and loved it there. It's a very unique type of trick-taking game where there are multiple tricks open at the same time. It's a pretty novel mechanic that I really like. However this version of the game added a bit too much and just served to complicate things. I liked it better when it was simpler. The good thing is, I played it later in the weekend again with the complicated animal rescue mechanic removed and it played much better. Note: this isn't a picture of the game I played since I forgot to take a picture, but at least it looks like I played one game with Stephen Dast over the weekend!
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Title: Icelandic Salesman
By: Randy Ekl
Played with: Randy Ekl, Rod Currie, Andrew Nerger
Game Time: 1:30 hrs
Prototype Rating: 3-3-3
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Title: In the Loop
By: Rattlebox Games (Rob Huber and Brendan Riley)
Played with: Rob Huber, Brendan Riley, Andrew Nerger
Game Time: 1:15 hrs
Prototype Rating: 3-2-3
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Saturday, April 6, 2019
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Saturday morning has kind of become my time to run a playtest of Race to the Moons since it's a longer game. So while I was waiting for enough people to play I took some photos of some of the other games that were out and about. I don't have names or details (unless they were captured in the pictures), but there were some really interesting looking games. I only wish I had time to play them all!
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By: George Jaros
Played with: Stan Kordonskiy, Jason Brooks, Howard Beatty
Game Time: 2:20 hrs
The first time I played Race to the Moons at a Protospiel it took 3.5 hours. Ideally I'd love it if the game was 20-25 minutes per player, so I've been working on streamlining the game and making it play faster for almost three years now. I'm happy to say that this play was the smoothest at a Protospiel so far. I was testing out a number of changes that had been suggested by my local game group and they were all pretty much positive. But the game still dragged a bit and was missing some of the spark that I knew it could have. We talked for quite a while after the game about ways it could be streamlined even further with the fun bits enhanced (and some ways to take out some thorny parts). The good news is that I finally finished making all the changes I wanted to implement last week and playtested it. The changes discussed at Protospiel Milwaukee made the last play the fastest and most streamlined yet! That's why I LOVE Protospiel!
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Title: Legacies
By: Jason Brooks
Played with: Jeff Benson, Alex Hinners
Game Time: 3 hrs
Prototype Rating: 4-4-5
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Title: 8 Seconds
By: George Jaros
Played with: Nyles Breecher, Andrew Nerger, Jeff Chin, Jason Brooks, Keith Matejka
Game Time: 1 hr
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By: Nyles Breecher
Played with: Andrew Nerger, Jeff Chin, Jason Brooks
Game Time: 45 minutes
Prototype Rating: 3-5-4
This game about building robots and drafting dice was a lot of fun. It needed a bit of balancing, but drafting, rolling, and distributing handfuls of d20 dice was a ton of fun. Most of what needed to be changed here was some balancing with the robot abilities and costs and some graphic design on the board to make the die values that correspond with different actions easier to read. I had a lot of fun with this one and can't wait to see how it grows.
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Sunday, April 7, 2019
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| This is Jordan Sorenson's Bella Notte. I didn't get a chance to play, but watched the feedback after a play. The game has incredible table presence and everyone really seemed to love it. I hope I get a chance to play it someday! |
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By: Patrick Rauland
Played with: Patrick Rauland, Jordan Sorenson
Game Time: 45 minutes
Prototype Rating: 1-5-5
This was a super early prototype that Patrick was actually tweaking and making components for on the fly. We actually played this twice, once with the initial rules and then again after coming up with the idea for having both public and private goals. There is still a lot that needs to be worked out about the ultimate goal and how scoring works, but the mechanics worked great! It's designed to feel like a fantasy themed pub game, where each player is a different race with their own coins that they use as markers on the grid. By taking different actions players will manipulate their pieces on the board (and sometimes their opponent's pieces) in an attempt to match certain patterns. It's similar to Task-Kalar if you're familiar with that, kind of like a simplified mashup of Tash-Kalar and CoinAge, two games that I really like. Be sure to keep your eye on this one!
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Title: Beard Snacks w/ Beard Bling expansion
By: George Jaros
Played with: Courtney Falk, Patrick Rauland, Jordan Sorenson
Game Time: 1:15 hrs - incomplete
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Title: Dogs or Cats (or Dogs v. Cats or Dogs & Cats)
By: Maxine Ekl
Played with: Frank Dillon, Heather Newton, Rod Currie, Justin Williams
Game Time: 45 minutes
Prototype Rating: 3-5-5
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Title: Tower of Babel
By: Eric Jome
Played with: Maxine Ekl, Randy Ekl, Dusty Oakley
Game Time: 30 minutes
Prototype Rating: 1-4-4
This game didn't exist on Friday. One of the cool things about Protospiel is that The Game Crafter usually provides a table full of sample bits and blank cards and tokens. These 1x1x2 purple blocks were some of the components that were piled on the table this time. One of the other cool things about Protospiel is that games are not only refined, but sometimes invented completely over the weekend. Such was the case with Tower of Babel. I saw Eric Jome playing with these blocks most of Friday and Saturday. By Sunday he had come up with a cooperative dexterity game (which is especially funny since he usually hates both cooperative games and dexterity games). But Tower of Babel plays quickly, has interesting decisions, and was quite fun! Players take turns adding a block to the tower (no two blocks can line up perfectly) and then, optionally, adding a meeple to the tower (or removing or moving a meeple). The game ends after the last block is placed and then each meeple scores points for how many units above the table it is. We had a lot of fun and I was sad that I had to leave for home after only two plays.
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So that's it for Protospiel Milwaukee 2019! As usual, I played a ton of really fun games, met some awesome people, hung out with some old friends, and had a blast. Also, as usual, I didn't play all the games I wanted to, didn't get to meet everyone I wanted to, and didn't get to hang out with all my old friends. But it was still a blast, and there's always the next one! I can't wait to see everyone at Protospiel Chicago in September!
(Not pictured: A partial play of MiniSkull Quests on Saturday night with Andrew Nerger, Jeffery Chin, and Nyles Breecher and a game of 8 Seconds on Sunday with Heather and Will Newton.)
(Not pictured: A partial play of MiniSkull Quests on Saturday night with Andrew Nerger, Jeffery Chin, and Nyles Breecher and a game of 8 Seconds on Sunday with Heather and Will Newton.)
Did you like this recap? Show your support: Support me on Patreon! Also, click the heart at Board Game Links
, like GJJ Games on Facebook , or follow on Twitter . And be sure to check out my games on Tabletop Generation.
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