Ingeniators Playtest at U-Con

[nemorathwald]

My playtest of Ingeniators at U-Con had six attendees, despite being a four-player game. There were two others who wanted to participate but had schedule conflicts.

One player, who was there with his son, disliked brainy games and spacial reasoning challenges. You always need to be careful to alleviate the feeling of intimidation that a casual gamer experiences with the typical mid-to-high-heaviness game. If you can reassure them past their initial palpable fear of boredom and humiliation, they will get comfortable. This player took an early lead, which helped a lot. The other players were familiar with games of similar weight.

I sought to answer these questions with a playtest. Did players...

1 ... catch onto the rules quickly?
2 ... develop strategies?
3 ... collaborate to achieve goals?
4 ... give each other advice for the sheer beauty of a clever solution?
5 ... achieve victory before too much time has passed?
6 ... not know who was assured of victory, until victory was near?
7 ... say or demonstrate that they're having fun?

The answers were all yes. As always, the playtesters made helpful suggestions. I'll try some more tweaking in future playtests, but Ingeniators is ready for me to draw illustrations of example plays, paint cover art, and show it to publishers.

Comments

[cdrodeffer.livejournal.com]

This is great, Matt! I wish I could have stuck around Saturday evening to try it, but I had to get home to sick family. Sunday, I was starting to feel a bit sick myself. I hope I didn't have this ick on Saturday.

[sorcycat.livejournal.com]

I can suggest one publisher, who was formerly a guest of honor at U-Con. http://www.jollyrogergames.com/

[moatn.livejournal.com]

I can't wait to play it!

[coffee-lady52.livejournal.com]

Awesome, Matt! I'm sorry I had to miss U-Con, and your play-test. :-( I hope to be able to play Ingeniators soon, and see it in published form! Congratulations!