Other avenues...

So after licking my wounds are the campaign, I’ve spent the last few months looking at other avenues to get Mech Force published. I’ve reached out to a number of publishing companies. Some have replied, one even playtested, and although the feedback was good, they’re unfortunately not going to move forward with it. But I’m undeterred. There’s a few more companies I’m contacting, so keep your fingers crossed.

I’ve also got The Road Crew with another publisher. Hopefully I should get some feedback soon…

Mini Welli-con

I had the opportunity to take some of my prototypes along to Mini-Wellycon last week. It's not often I get to participate in 12 hours of solid gaming. (Not just my stuff). It was tonnes of fun.

I got lots of great feedback. The Color of Light is taking shape. Invariably dice games produce vastly different results and during this playtest I was on a run of bad luck. Some slight mechanic changes will be brought in next version, but nothing too onerous. It's the old adage on the last 10% taking 90% of the time.

One of the players that lent their time to The Road Crew broke it. Which is a good thing. That's going to require some intervention to balance it out.

IMDL! played well. All the more crushing that I'm able to progress with the configurable dice at this point. (See the Publishing blog.)

I've got another couple of ideas that I'm chomping at the bit to work on, but spreading myself between 4 games is probably enough (some would say excessive!) I've got to get each of these into a finished state before starting another...

On trying to be subjective

I was talking to Clare last night about how the playtesting went at the weekend. I mentioned that the 'Road Crew' could have gone better, and that it got a bit chaotic as the game went on.

Concerned, she asked me, how I felt about it, and if I was upset. I answered honestly, no. After all, the idea of a play-test is exactly that. I'm sure most designers would like a perfect play-though first time but it's not going to happen. It's the old adage that 'No Plan Survives Contact with the Enemy'. What seems like a working idea in your head may be an absolute mess when another three brains get added to the mix.

Regardless of how well it went, I've got into the habit of asking, is there a seed of a good idea there? There's no point flogging a dead horse if the principle idea is bad. But if players can gleam a nugget beneath the detritus of unnecessary rules and tokens, then it's worth working on.

Sure, thick skin may be needed. I know twenty years ago, I would have taken the criticism to heart, but the point is, if we're trying to make the best game possible, regardless if it's a little 20 minutes time filler, or a three hour epic, then any feedback is good feedback. Mostly.