New Game from Days of Wonder: 'Relic Runners'

Congratulations to Playtest UK member, Matt Dunstan on his first published design, 'Relic Runners', which is due to be released by Days of wonder later this year.

The game was playtested at the Playtest UK London meetup and went on to be shortlisted for the Europa Ludi 2012.

Links: 

Days of Wonder: www.daysofwonder.com/relic-runners/en/
Game Entry on BoardGameGeek:
boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/144270/relic-runners

London Meetup Sunday 21st July

The July London Meetup will be on Sunday 21st July from 1pm to 8pm at the Jugged Hare pub, Victoria.


Playtest is getting bigger for the Summer! This will be the last London meetup before the Nine Worlds public playtesting event at the start of August.

If you've designed a game, bring it along and give it a play or just enjoy playing other people's prototypes in a friendly and constructive atmosphere. Everyone is welcome.

If you would like to bring along a new design, contact Rob Harris (Organiser) and your game will be added to the provisional list. 

We have pre-registration to make the sessions run more smoothly. Designers are encouraged to pre-register their games to be playtested before the meetup by leaving a message on the meetup page or contacting Rob Harris (Organiser).

You are still welcome to bring along other designs on the day, but time slots will first of all be allocated to pre-registered games.

More details: www.meetup.com/Playtest/events/115482652/

We also have a guild at Boardgamegeek.com: www.boardgamegeek.com/guild/1398

Some of the games to be playtested (TBC):

Hegemony - medium weight wargame, 60+ mins, 4 players (Robert Bracey)

Dexikon - wordplay card game, 60 mins, 4 players (Andrew Rowse)

Temple of Doom - card based escape game 45 mins, 4 players (Andrew Rowse)

Eternal Gateway - fantasy/medieval game, 120-180 mins, 2-6 players (Andy Yiangou)

Codex of the Gods - abstract game, 20 mins, 2-3 players (David Mortimer)

Adapt or Die Cro-Magnons - survival game, 90-120 mins, 3-4-5 players (David Mortimer)

Viroids - Details to be confirmed (Matt Rodda)

Dark Continent - sandbox exploration game, details to be confirmed (Chris Leigh)

Starfighter - space combat game, 70-90 mins, 3-6 players (Lawrence Davies)

SQUASH! - tactical sports game, 10-15 mins, 2 players (Lawrence Davies)

Blackjack Attack/Trivia - card game prototype, more details to come, 3,6,8 players (Helen Walton)

Caterwaul - card game about rival cats, 20-45 mins, 2 players (Mo Holkar)

Privatise? - satirical political game, 60 mins, 3-5 players (Chris Swann)

June London Meetup 2013 Debrief

40 members celebrated Father's Day by attending the June London meetup for Playtest UK. 27 prototypes were playtested across 4 sessions, with games ranging from family dice game, 'Sheepie Sleepy' to political game design, 'Imperialism in Space'. We welcomed 17 new attendees this month: Andy Y, Coraline, Ed, Fabian, Frank, Gary, Helen, Jackie, Jazz, Jenny, Marianna, Nathan, Pete, Richard B, Richard, Robert, Steve K.
Details of the games played can be found here on a BGG geeklist: 
www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/158511/playtest-uk-london-meetup-sunday-16th-june-2013

Here are some photos of the event:

 

 

 

 

 

Article in the UKGE2013 Programme

At the start of the year, Richard from the UK Games Expo asked me to write something for the event's programme. My thoughts on which subject to cover changed from the history of games to people who had influenced my own designs, but in the end I decided to create a Games Design Checklist for novice designers and others who are interested.

There was a much larger attendance at the event than the organisers expected and they actually ran out of programmes on the first day of the show. Subsequently, they decided to post the text as a pdf file for people that missed out and this gives me the opportunity to post it here.

Here is the link: www.ukgamesexpo.co.uk/UKGE2013Programme.pdf

My article is on page 15, with Playtest UK also mentioned elsewhere in the Redesign Competition and the Guests page.