In May 2023 I helped organize an UnPub Mini event near Detroit, MI. Since this playtest event came about directly from a high school game design class, I figured I'd post my experience here on my Project Pack site. Anyone can organize an event like this. You can see Part 1 of my posts here and Part 2 here.
So how did the event go? It was excellent overall for our first effort. I look forward to doing it again in the future.
I counted attendance once during a peak time. There were 23 people there, with around 7 games being played. That might not seem like a lot, but I was glad to see it. Also the space we were ultimately allowed to use was getting tight.
For me the highlight of the event was meeting the designers for the first time, and connecting again with the ones I hadn’t seen in years. As much as I love making and playing games, relationships have proven many times over to be the heart of gaming. I’m sure the networking that resulted in this event will have a lasting impact.
Our event ran from noon until 7:00. We had scheduled an hour for a meal at 3:00, but many played games the whole time. I spent most of my testing time on Dominic Crapuchette’s Nature game. Even at that, it probably only accounted for 2-3 hours of the day. I spent another 90 minutes or so running two of my games, one time each. The rest of the time flew by, between conversations and making sure everything was going as well as possible.
My only regret of the whole event was that the designers outnumbered the playtesters. Turns out we had around 15 designers throughout the day, but only 10 or 11 people came in just to playtest. My count could be off either way, since I was often running games, and I am not exactly sure if some of the game designers were only there as playtesters.
I see now it’s crucial to have playtesters there at the start of the event, since the designers at our event jumped into games as testers right away. This posed some of a problem when playtesters came in and there were no designers available to run games for them.
Keep in mind no one spoke to me about these dynamics (or at least not before I posted this!). Designers playing each other’s games is not a bad thing in itself. It’s the heart of the Protospiel model, of course, and I’ve loved being a part of that for over 20 years. It’s not the intent of the UnPub model, though, and that was a bit of a discouragement. I wanted every designer to have several hours to run their own game. And for giveaways, lot of us contributed to prizes in hopes of bringing in playtesters. Instead, most of those were won by other designers. Again, no one mentioned this to me as a negative. They were happy to leave with some new games. Still, it was the biggest area I want to improve for future events.
Here are some other takeaways, if you’re planning such an event:
- Parking - Parking was a problem at this particular game store. Even though the entire gaming room was only 3/4 full at most, I was told it was hard to find a place to park. Work with the owner of the venue if you’re not familiar with it yourself, so you can have good parking directions for attendees no matter when they arrive.
- Getting Feedback for Games - I used a Google Form to collect feedback from playtesters. (You can see it here.) The idea was that this would make it easier to organize responses afterward, when I had to send feedback to the various designers. The resulting spreadsheet was also what I used to randomly “draw” winners. Even though I sent that form to all designers ahead of time, to be sure everyone was happy with it, in retrospect I can see it was a little too long. Accessing it with a QR code was meant to be easy, but I saw that repeatedly filling it out throughout the day on a phone was a chore for some people. Next time I’ll trim down the questions and consider a paper form.
- Getting Contact Information - At the end of the form, I asked if it was ok for the designer to contact the playtester for two things–more feedback and to keep them updated about the game’s development. We will see how valuable that plays out in time, but my hope is that it helped build every designer’s contacts.
- Getting Playtesters - I’m still trying to think of ways to draw in more playtesters. It was suggested that we emphasize playtesters will be mentioned in the published game’s credit section. Someone else suggested getting more support from local game stores. (One problem with that is we hosted at a game store, so not all businesses will be excited to promote an event at a competing business.) In the end, I think the best bet is:
- Show off photos of great looking prototypes as much as possible.
- Get some well known talent involved, if not in person, at least get their prototype there.
- Be extremely clear on what the event is. The average gamer is probably not familiar with this model of a playtesting event. Playing games that are not finished doesn’t sound fun to someone who loves playing games with a proven track record. You have to let them know in the first sentence or first glimpse at your images what’s in it for them.
- UnPub or Not? - As I mentioned in a previous article, connecting this event to the UnPub Network didn’t offer any measurable advantage. Only one person told me it caught his attention. I’ve had others tell me it makes no difference whatsoever. I will consider naming this something else for future events, essentially making it some combination of a one-day Protospiel and UnPub Mini.
- Sponsors - Reach out to game stores, publishers and other organizations that might offer giveaways in support of the designers. I had great support in store credit and gift cards from Games4Life, in Lake Orion, MI. Also a rep from Launch Tabletop sent me a code that I could share with all the designers, offering a 20% discount off our first order from that print-on-demand service.
- Make It Win-Win for the Venue - If you’re hosting the event at a business, be sure everyone supports that business. It should be a big day for that store too, so they want to have you back. Mention all sponsors in all your announcements. I’ve found that $15 or $20 gift cards are a good investment that benefits your event (as a giveaway) and the store you get them from. It gets the winners to shop in the store, and they will almost certainly spend more than what it cost you. In our case, we actually had so many prizes that I tossed the gift cards in with one or two other games, depending on the size of the games. Even then I think I gave away three stacks of prizes three times throughout the event.
- Play the Long Game - Organize the event for the other designers. Sure, I wanted to get my games in front of the public so I could improve them, but throughout the planning process I had to remind myself my work was for helping the others. It reminded me of the thrill I had running Protospiel years ago. It’s exciting seeing aspiring designers getting good feedback, and giving heartfelt thanks as we say good-bye at the end. As much as you can, make sure all attendees have that goal. Then anyone’s win is a win for the team.
