This past weekend a friend and myself drove up to San Jose for 3 days of playtesting games, chatting with other designers, and getting feedback from the amazing people that stopped by to play our games.

I decided to bring three games I’ve been working on to the event. My most developed game, Gerrymandering, is an area-majority game for 4-6 players. I got to get this to the table multiple times over Saturday (the busiest day of the event) with ease, as players were taught the rules, finished the game, and just as quickly as they’d leave a new group of gamers would sit down to learn it. People seem to really like where the game is at!

The second game I brought is called Bubonic. This is a worker-placement game set during the Black Death that takes 45-60 minutes. Unfortunately this game never got the attention I was hoping to see it receive, and I think it might have to do with the third game I brought over-shadowing it.

Lastly I brought Robber’s Dilemma, a 2-player heist game where you are both robbing a bank together, but getting the money isn’t the hard part – It’s knowing if you can trust your friend. This 10-15 minute game, while fairly simple, got positive responses and lots of great actionable feedback I can’t wait to hammer out, especially considering the fact that I’ve only been working on it for a week. Definitely pumped to work on this more in the near future.

One of the neat things about Protospiel as an event is how it’s structured. Each designer shares a table with another designer so they can playtest their games for some time and then switch-off to go play other designers’ games. While I was definitely focused on getting valuable feedback for the games that I had brought, I was able play other games throughout the event. Below I’m going to go over various games I played during the event; I’ve tried to add links where interested parties can go to learn more/follow the designers via social media.

I shared my table with Mike Trias and got to try his game Center Stage, a game about forming a super trio of musicians. The game primarily involves set-collection with a fair amount of take-that, but where it really gets neat is the board itself. There are 4 runways connected to the box the game comes in, and you have to rotate them regularly to get the performers you want most. Mike recorded a video at the event with Edo if you are interested – here is the link.

After that on Friday I wandered about and got to try Superbloom by designer Rob Greanias. This was a abstract area-controlish game where you are removing pieces from the board, but it had a fun twist: You don’t know which types of flowers your opponents want. At the beginning of the game each player picks and chooses how valuable each color of flower is to them (between 0-3 points each) which really made the end-game pop. He also recorded a video with Edo, so check it out if you’re so inclined – link here.

On Saturday I got the chance to play Josie Noronha‘s Affection Game – a quick game about sharing your feelings with a partner or friend. This isn’t a type of game I’m normally into, but playing it with Josie was really fun and we chatted about Protospiel and games in general as part of the game. I will say the personal, more feelings-focused nature of this game really made it stand out for me, and the neat robo-art helped make it very approachable and visually appealing.

The next game I played was SPQF, a deck-builder by Grant Rodiek. Going into the event I was pretty interested in trying this game out, and I will say it did not disappoint. In a nutshell it’s a deck-builder that breaks a ton of the standard deck-building genre conventions – You can’t draw extra cards in a turn, you are always engaged with what your opponent’s are doing, cards have no cost/are free, etc. Of all the games I played over the weekend this was the one I enjoyed the most and I can’t wait to get my hands on a printed copy. I even used Grant’s print and play files to make a copy of my own to tide me over!

Later that day after more of my own playtesting, I got to try Scavenge Stockpile Survive by Jason Lentz. This was a cooperative deck-builder about fighting off zombies in a post-apocalyptic world. There were some interesting mechanisms involved, like taking cards from the player on your left to generate negative events, or adding zombies to your deck as a cost to gain new cards. I told Jason I wasn’t sure if consistently limiting your options in a game was a fun mechanic, but in all fairness I don’t even like co-ops very much so I’m probably not his target audience. Even with that kind of feedback, I am curious to see where this game goes.

Unfortunately I had to head out earlier than I’d hoped on Sunday, but there were two games I saw that I want to mention even if I didn’t get a chance to play them this year.

Last year I was able to play Flesh It Out! by Brian Hopkins, Damian Birdseye, Eric Hannum, and Thor Olsen. This is a weirdly grotesque party game where each player needs to make a picture of something on a list, but only using the strange pieces the game provides. The real-time nature of it also promotes frantic grabbing of the available pieces and provides a solid party-game experience. They got to record a video with Edo which you can find here – link to video.

My other honorable mention/game I didn’t get to play was Sabotage by Tim Fowers. This is a 2v2 team game where one team plays as hackers trying to break into a facility and hack three mainframes, while the other team plays as guards attempting to prevent the hackers from finishing. This game caught my eye for a few reasons, namely the fact that it is played with a big Captain SONAR-esque screen between both teams while they play, as well as the apparent complexity of it all as described to me by Tim himself. I really hope I get a chance to try this one out, and am curious how Tim’s fans will react if/when this makes it to market.

Overall I had a great time at Protospiel this year, and am really grateful for all the designers and playtesters who showed up at the event. Going for the past 3 years has made me curious about running a similar event near where I live in SoCal, but there is a lot more that I’d need to do before jumping to anything of this scale.

I do want to give a big thanks to Jeremy Commandeur and Game Kastle for hosting the event, as well as all of the event’s sponsors for making it a possibility. Thanks for having me!

-Taylor Shuss (@drawnonward)