Our first playtest
Some of the components we created for the playtest, including a 3D printed tower. Really quite magnificent - and none of them are final.
Hello!
Chris: Firstly, we’re not sure how often these blog posts are going to be, so please do let us know if you’re enjoying them, and we might be tempted to publish more.
Playtests, they’re a lot of work aren’t they? Well, they are if you are as perfectionist as our team appears to be! But let’s head back in time for a moment before we talk about our first playtest that ran on the 25th September.
Out team consists of Chris, Zane, Tom and Matt and we’re looking to put on a megagame that runs to about 200 players. Bonkers eh? Specifically it’ll be a megagame about aliens visiting Earth and how the residents of the planet - that’s us by the way - could respond. It’s a megagame that’s heavily inspired by Jim Wallman’s ‘Watch The Skies’ and we’re looking to replicate the experience Jim created back in 2015-16 when he ran three 300-player megagames.
If you’re not sure what a megagame is, head over to our friends at Megagame Assembly to learn more, but do come back here when you’re finished over there!
No plan survives contact with the enemy…
Back to our first playtest. We ran four turns - lasting about 45 mins each - on the day and were fortunate to fill the venue with 23 players which was the the maximum number of people the venue could accommodate. The players represented five African countries, scientists, CEOs of two fictional corporations, the African Union and of course the aliens visiting Earth.
To ensure we tested the map mechanics as much as possible, we briefed one of the African teams to be as awful as possible to all the others. Nigeria certainly didn’t disappoint - by the end of the playtest there were a number of proxy wars in full swing, a couple of dirty bombs had been set off and Nigeria itself (probably fairly) was about to be invaded by a coalition of other African nations.
Added to this was the African Union trying desperately to resolve the continent’s problems, scientists engaging with world-changing research and corporate CEOs selling their grandmothers down the river to rake in every megacredit they could. Oh and don’t forget the aliens who we believe were last seen strip-mining Africa for oil. It’s OK, because we’re pretty sure the human race doesn’t need the black stuff to survive…
The scientists hard at work fixing the worlds problems. Because who else was going to do it?
What did we learn?
Running the playtest was a lot of fun, although after having almost one and a half years of not attending megagames, it was also an exhausting experience. We learnt a great deal about our game and how it interacts with players which was the best part of the day, honestly.
To gather feedback we employed a number of mechanisms, including asking the playtesters to write their thoughts and suggestions on colour-coded Post-It notes (green = good, yellow = could be improved and red = this went horribly wrong, change it!), sending out the obligatory post playtest feedback form and us as the organisers watching and listening like hawks. Very tired hawks that really just wanted to go and sleep in the corner. Or drink beer. If hawks could drink beer.
Anyway! Overall we were very pleased to learn that all the playtesters had a fantastic time. Which was a massive relief, to say the least.
Of course there were problems that we and the playtesters identified. Keeping track of time is hard (who knew?) so having some sort of central time-keeping device is important. If you have any ideas, let us know.
Seriously though, we learnt a lot about the game and what we need to change.
What went well
First the positives. The handbooks that explain each of the main functions of the game were well received. They weren’t perfect, but splitting each player role out to a separate handbook worked well and the playtesters liked that they didn’t have to read one massive rulebook before the game started.
Next, the playtesters loved our components. We’re extremely lucky to have some talented folks from the megagame community help us out, specifically with the art and 3D models - shout out to Tom and James! - because they really made the map come alive. The map looked gorgeous and was a beast weighing in at 6’ x 4’ (1.8 x 1.2m), while the 3D models which we had printed really brought the whole experience to life. Fortunately no landmarks were destroyed during the playtest, which we were actually quite shocked at.
Finally, the CEOs of those fictional corporations had a ball. We do need to simplify their player mats and make it more obvious what they could research to sell, but even so, both playtesters really enjoyed selling all sorts of crazy technologies to the African governments. I mean, show us a military commander that doesn’t want to buy a dirty bomb.
South Africa showing off her military units and 3D printed landmark.
What needed to change
Of course, not everything went to plan, but that’s why we ran the playtest, right?
We discovered that the African Union (AU) players felt a bit locked out as the decisions that they were making did not always find their way into the game to change its state. The AU was a stand-in for the United Nations Security Council which will be in the final game - and while we thought the council game would take up to 10 players, plus the UN Secretary General, it appears we were wrong. So back to the drawing board on that one with fewer players who can feel more involved in setting the political agenda.
The map game, while carefully thought out and playtested online before the big day, struggled a little bit. That’s not to say the playtesters didn’t have a good time, but it was hard to balance the timings at the map game - sometimes it ran too slowly and others too quickly - and we certainly didn’t staff it with enough facilitators. We’re looking at how to change the map mechanics now to make them a bit simpler, but we’re very glad we found this out before the main game runs. [note from Tom: it actually went really well and the fundamentals are sound - we’re just decomplexifying it a touch to keep the pace up and reduce the need for mental arithmetic!]
Playtest two (alien boogaloo)
Overall though, we felt the playtest ran extremely well. We worked hard to make sure it was a polished experience and from the feedback we’ve seen it came across that way.
What’s next for us? Well, we’ll be running an alien-focused playtest in London on 15 January and looking out for playtesters right now. If you have a keen mind, don’t mind giving feedback on a megagame-under-construction and have half a day free, sign up now. Perhaps best of all, the playtest is FREE and we’ll even throw in pizza to keep you fed.
Come along and help make history. If nothing else, the players at the real game will thank you for your feedback!