Running an UnPub Mini - Part 3 - 8 Takeaways

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.

Running an UnPub Mini - Part 2

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.

Getting Designers

After we secured space and decided on the date, I created a sign-up form in Google Forms and began promoting it on Facebook. I run the Eastern Michigan Game Designers group, and I am at least in touch with a few other groups that playtest across the state. I also reached out to Matt Riddle and Adam Hill from Motor City Gameworks (though Kevin is better friends with both of them). I even sent some messages to designers I hadn’t met before, but who I thought might be interested. 

Within a matter of days I had about 10-12 designers signed up on an email list. We were covering a wide distance, with me an hour north of the event, designers coming from Ann Arbor, and one designer from the Toledo area. While they all didn’t commit to attending right away, their interest was enough to meet my minimum goal to move ahead with plans. 

I’ll say that connecting our event officially to UnPub probably helped the most in getting the designers to pay attention. Calling it an UnPub Mini gave it credibility, even if Kevin and I were basically making it up as we went. Beyond that, I don’t remember getting any official support from UnPub, even though Kevin and I both were in touch with the Network.

Getting Playtesters

The next challenge was to be sure we’d get enough playtesters. Now, when it came to designers, I knew we could expect them to sign up. For playtesters, that would be too much to ask. I wanted to remove all obstacles. We just had to promote and promote, then hope people actually came to test our games.

I decided we’d do some drawings during the event for playtesters who submitted feedback from games. I asked my friend Jon Pehrson, who owns the Games4Life game store in Lake Orion, if he’d help us out at all with prizes. He gave me some store credit and a couple gift cards. With some of my own contribution, I ended up with $55 of gift cards from him, plus about $90 of games. I asked all designers to consider contributing to giveaways. Ultimately they came through in a big way, but I didn’t know what to expect in that regard until the day of the event.

One last thing I did as a promotion was reach out to my friend Dominic Crapuchettes, from NorthStar Game Studio. I asked if he had anything he’d want me to test for him. I figured that would be a bit of a draw for the event. Dominic supported us in a big way. He donated a deluxe copy of Oceans as a giveaway, and he sent me a prototype for his streamlined approach to the Evolution system, Nature, which he plans to have on Kickstarter later this year.

I originally planned to promote the event by showing off our prototypes too. I changed my mind on that eventually, mostly because of the look of my own games! I realized that unless we had some amazing looking prototypes, the rough state of the games might be a turn off to gamers who aren’t familiar with games in development. I did get some nice photos from some designers, though, so I made one post about the prototypes right before the event. 

But with giveaways, a game from NorthStar to test (with some quality artwork to show off on social media), plus the guys from Motor City Gameworks coming with their prototypes, I felt we were doing well gaining attention. Our Facebook event for the UnPub Mini had 35-40 people marked as “interested”. What more could I hope for?

Just to keep me guessing until the end, I did get a message from the hosting game store saying our group might be too big for the space he was willing to allow us. That made me nervous, since we were committed in a big way by then. Next up I’ll talk about how all that panned out, including the event highlights.

Running an UnPub Mini - Part 1

 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. Though ours was not only for students, and most designers were adults, I could see this as a great event for the end of a class, where students show their games to families and other community members.

The Initial Vision

In early March, Kevin Crowther posted a message on some Facebook gaming groups. He teaches a high school game design class (a dream job in my mind, but he reminds me it’s just one of his classes). They normally participate in a countywide design competition, but it was canceled this year. He was checking for interest in running an UnPub Mini with area designers, so two of his students could get feedback an exposure for their games.

Kevin and I are both educators. We’ve talked for years (mostly online, but we’ve crossed paths at big gaming events in the area) about his class. I have wanted to run an UnPub-like event since I participated in a large UnPub in Michigan about five years ago. I responded to his post with an offer to co-organize this with him.

I was thinking of doing this mid-summer, but Kevin wanted it before school was out, if possible. He picked May 20, about two months away. I figured that was tight for a large event,  

What Exactly Is an UnPub?

I am very familiar with Protospiel events, having attended the first one ever (just five of us). I ran the one in Michigan (still the only Protospiel at that time) for several years. In those events, designers get together and playtest each other’s games. Countless designer meetups like that now happen monthly in larger cities. 

The UnPub model is very different, and it caught me off guard when I attended one in 2017. These events have designers testing their more polished games to the general public. The one I attended had 50 - 100 designers over the weekend, and hundreds of playtesters cycled through. 

Kevin had read up on what it takes to officially connect our event to the UnPub Network and call it an UnPub Mini. Turns out the main requirement was that we couldn’t charge anyone. That’s my type of event, so I was fine with that. 

The UnPub site says a Mini event can range from 10 - 40 people. So our task was to get space for something like that, plus we needed to draw in some designers and the public. 

Getting Space

I knew our event would likely be too small to warranting renting space (and we had that requirement that we couldn’t charge anyone to participate). If it went well, though, I was afraid we’d pack out the gaming space at any game stores I was aware of. Kevin and I considered the possibility of libraries and conference rooms too.

Considering that we eventually needed to reach gamers who would be willing to playtest, the game store option made the most sense. 

Now to put this in context, I live in a small town about an hour north from Detroit. All the exciting stuff happening with gaming and game design is always a bit of a drive for me. Playtest events I hold about 30 minutes from me are still considered too far to drive for many of the designers in the greater Detroit area.

So while I knew of many larger game stores in the area, I don't frequent them. I certainly didn't know the owners. I wasn't sure how crowded their rooms were on a Saturday. I ended up making a lot of phone calls and reaching out with emails and Facebook messages, first just checking if anyone would consider hosting an event like we had in mind.

I started out thinking I was providing an opportunity for many people to come into their store. After a few chats with owners, I knew I was really asking for a big favor! The owners didn’t know what an UnPub Mini was. Responses ranged from skepticism with little interest to accommodate us to vague references to a fee if we wanted to be sure to have enough room. Understandably, their regulars (who also expected to have long gaming sessions on a Saturday) took priority. I did have a price in mind that I’d pay for the event, just to make this first one happen. I was really hoping for free though. 

Eventually I connected with a shop on the west side of the area that had a large open gaming area. The person in charge of events assured me we'd have room and wouldn't have to pay (But I could pay around $200 to reserve it just for us, not knowing at the time how many people we'd even have). I checked with Kevin. We decided to go with the free option. I asked them to add our event to their calendar.

With that out of the way, the next effort was to get some interested game designers.