Tuesday 28 November 2017

New Playtest UK logo decided

As part of the revamp of Playtest UK, we are looking to update our logo will a more professional looking version.

Robb Smigielski has very kindly created a treatment of various possibilities and it would be great to get the feedback of of members to make sure that we have retained the right feel and image.

If you are interested, please give your feedback by completing our online questionnaire, which can be found here: https://goo.gl/forms/MbZsuIZzYag52YWz1

Plymouth meetup group added to Playtest UK

We have added another playtesting group to Meetup.com:

The Plymouth Playtest meetup group is run by David Manley and their next meetup is on Tuesday 11th December at The Marina Bar, Plymouth, PL4 0DN.

We now have regular meetups at 20 locations around the country:
London, Newcastle, Cambridge, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Brighton, Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Oxford, Reading, Norwich, Enfield, Bath, Redruth, Dundee, Croydon, Southampton and Plymouth, where designers and playtesters can meet up to play games and give each other feedback.

You can find details of the meetups here: www.meetup.com/Playtest


Wednesday 1 November 2017

Playtest UK @ Dragonmeet 2017


Saturday 2nd December 2017


Playtest UK will be returning to Dragonmeet for the 8th year to run the Playtest Zone. Check out the www.dragonmeet.co.uk website for more details.
This year Dragonmeet will double in size and take over both floors at the Novotel Hammersmith, London W6 8DR. We will be playtesting from 10am until 6pm. 

This will be a public playtesting event for card games, board games, digital game prototypes. If you are a games designer, this is a perfect opportunity to play your game with the great gaming public and receive more feedback in a day than you usually would in a month.

There will be a prize draw for playtesters that sit down to play a prototype.

If you would like to bring along a game design to be playtested please RSVP to the meetup page: 
https://www.meetup.com/Playtest/events/245157492/
then, register your game beforehand using the website contact form:
https://goo.gl/forms/A4IFzuyFzBP6Nqys1 
then, book your time slot here:
https://doodle.com/poll/8xxcbnzxg5vh2uda
If you are interested in volunteering to help out at the Playtest Zone, you can register here for a free ticket: https://goo.gl/forms/3zuqQQCL6KFmIRcf1

Adult Tickets can be bought from the website for about £10 each (or they are £12 on the door).
Under 16's  tickets are free with an adult.
Transport: I would advise against driving as parking in this area of London is very expensive, but the venue is a short walk from Hammersmith and Baron's Court rail & tube stations, which are on the District & Piccadilly lines.

Sunday 1 October 2017

Playtest UK @ UK Games Expo 2018

We are looking forward to running several events at UKGE2018 like the Playtest Zone, networking night and Designer-Publisher speed dating.

Please note that registration for these events will not open until January 2018. Please keep an eye on our website for more details.

Monday 26 June 2017

Playtest UK @ UKGE2017 prize draw

All playtesters at the Playtest Zone at the UK Games Expo 2017 were entered into a prize draw, kindly sponsored by BoardGameGuru, the online boardgame shop.

The prize was a copy of the board game, Olympus and the lucky winner was Nakita Gilbert.

Monday 12 June 2017

Playtest UK @ UKGE 2017 Debrief


Thank you to all the playtesters and designers that came to the Playtest Zone during Expo and helped to make it such a great event.

We had 112 different designers showing their prototypes over the three days and we managed to raise £719.18 for the Samaritans charity.

Special thanks to the Playtest Zone team of Brett Gilbert, Matt Dunstan, Jen Freeman, Rob Harper, John Brieger, Nuria Casellas, Craig Petersen, Richard Willis, Tom Coldron, Lawrence Davies, Andy Yiangou, Mike Ibeji, Greg Szulgit and many others for volunteering their time to make this such a great event.
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Sunday 28 May 2017

FoxMind looking for board game pitches - deadline tomorrow!

Russ from Draughts Board Game Cafe has just let me know that Foxmind, a North American Board Games Company will be visiting their board games cafe in London on Thursday June 1st.

They are inviting local board game designers to submit a sales sheet to submissions@foxmind.com in order to be considered. Unfortunately the deadline is tomorrow 29th May, so you will have to be quick.

Below is direct from their press release:



WHAT FOXMIND IS LOOKING FOR

FoxMind is a family friendly board game company who publishes multiple types of board games, toys and logic puzzles. We are constantly searching for new game concepts of the following types:

- Light strategy games (45 minutes) - Party and dexterity games - Puzzle solving games - Kid games - Quick and portable mini-games.

HOW TO SUBMIT

Please include the following elements in your email:

- A short summary of your game concept - Game rules in PDF or DOC format - Pictures or video file.
Sharing with us your game design experience and what lead you to design the submitted game is a great way for us to know you better. Any information we have helps us decide which games are on our list of potential releases.

WHEN CAN I EXPECT FEEDBACK FOR MY SUBMISSION

We will provide quick feedback to selected designers to schedule a meeting. Other designers will receive a response within the Month of June.
If you have any questions regarding game submissions, please write to us at submissions@foxmind.com.

Friday 19 May 2017

90 mins playtesting session available to book.

The 90 mins playtesting session at the Playtest zone at the UK Games Expo are now available to book on a first-come-first-served.

Beforehand, you will need to register your game and details here: https://goo.gl/forms/j1wKCzx3X5h6PUQD2

Then you can book a 90 mins session here: http://doodle.com/poll/bewbqekk9etx5r2z

A daily record of the bookings will be kept on an online google document here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xLnHepn0ku7SuxWvJmWXZS8QkQHmy8z2VvYn22EwObs/edit?usp=sharing

Look forward to seeing you at Expo.

MtM Designer/Publisher Speed-Dating Finalists Announced!

The finalists for the Meet the Makers Designer/Publisher Speed-Dating event at the UK Games Expo 217 have been announced!

They are as follows:

Changnan - Fabio Lopiano
Jazz - Robb Smigielski & Jamie Gray
Gentrification - Andreas Fidjeland
Beggar Man Thief - Nick Case
Stop Dr Evil - Mike Ibeji
Dungeon Cards - Jamie Woodhead
StellaTransporter - Chris Owen
To Have & To Hold - Curtis Reubens
Gribblies - Anna Parry & Alex Thompson
Caravans of the Silk Road - Jen Freeman
Elemental Ascent - Andrew Dennison with Laura Mitchell
The Bank Job - Michal Semczyszyn

1st Reserve: Wasteland Justice - Matthew Morris

The publishers hearing the pitches will be:

Alex Yeager - Mayfair Games
Zev Schlasinger - Wizkds
Sebastian Hein - Pegasus Games
Bernd Keller - Amigo Spiele
Beate Haasbach - Queen Games
Duncan Molloy - Osprey Games
Henry Jasper - Grublin Games
Laurence O'Brien - Wotan Games
Steve Slack - Spiral Galaxy
Lewis Shaw - Brain Crack Games
Peter Blenkharn - In the Box Games
Caezar Al-Jassar - Alley Cat Games

The event will take place at 6.30pm Friday 2nd June 2017 at the UK Game Expo.

Thursday 11 May 2017

New Logo - Feedback wanted

As part of the revamp of Playtest UK, we are looking to update our logo will a more professional looking version.

Robb Smigielski has very kindly created a treatment of various possibilities and it would be great to get the feedback of of members to make sure that we have retained the right feel and image.

If you are interested, please give your feedback by completing our online questionnaire, which can be found here: https://goo.gl/forms/MbZsuIZzYag52YWz1

Tuesday 2 May 2017

Expo volunteers needed!

Sign up below!

This year Playtest UK will be running three events at the UK Games Expo on Friday 2nd-Sunday 4th June 2017.

The Playtest Zone will run as usual on each day of the convention: Friday, Saturday and Sunday

The Designer/Publisher Speed-Dating will be on Friday 2nd June 6pm-8pm.

the Designer/Publisher Networking will be on Friday 2nd June 9pm-10.30pm

All of our events are only possible because of our fantastic volunteers. If you are interested in joining our volunteer team, please follow this link to a google form to enter your details and availability: https://goo.gl/forms/KFTRSWsLvvwDENWg2

We are able to offer Expo day passes to volunteers that can help out for a certain amount of hours during the event. Also, volunteers will get the first choice of playtesting sessions.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact Rob Harris via the usual contact form.

Friday 7 April 2017

2nd Playtest UK Games Jam winners



The winners of the 2nd Playtest UK Games Jam are...

The Adults (who are Phil Barritt, Sam Fox, TJ Matthews, Darren Edwards, Andreas Haggman and Steven Cain) with their game design 'A Day at the Museum.'

The games jam was part of the Game On: Contemporary Board Games Study Day @ The Museum of Childhood on Saturday 1st April.

The day consisted of talks in the morning, with a line-up of games industry luminaries: Ian Livingstone CBE, James Wallis, Esther MacCallum, Nia Wearn, Quintin Smith and Holly Nielsen.
 

The winning design will now go into a development process and a limited run of two games will be produced. One for the winning designers and one to go in the permanent collection of the Museum of Childhood.