I got to visit the prototype room at Celesticon for a day and play a bunch of prototype games. Thanks to Luke Laurie for organizing the event.
Find the photos here:
Prototype Room (Celestispiel) at Celesticon
CelestiCon is holding a prototype event within the con.
When: Labor Day Weekend (August 29-September 1, 2014)
Where: Fremont Marriott, Fremont, CA
Find additional details here:
http://celesticon.com/celestispiel.php
Or contact the organizer, Luke Laurie.
Greetings,
I promised full financial transparency for the event. I just paid the last bill, so I now I have a full accounting of every dollar (see below). After all is said and done, I wound up paying about $62 out of pocket to make Unpub Protospiel happen.
I want to thank Game Kastle for hosting the event and giving us a good deal on renting the required amount of space/tables/chairs. I appreciate Game Kastle's support.
A big thank you to Seth of Tasty Minstrel Games and Ted of Bezier games for sponsoring food. They made the sandwiches and pizza on Saturday and Sunday viable.
Thanks also to Franklin Kenter for contributing $100 to subsidize the Game Design Contest. You can drop him a line via his website here: http://www.caam.rice.edu/~fhk2/
I need to express my gratitude to Pizza My Heart for providing pizza on Saturday. Those pizzas showed up at just the right time.
Finally, thanks to Aldo Ghiozzi and Impressions Distribution for providing the raffle prizes.
Budget Lessons Learned:
I wound up spending too much on the game design contest kits. They wound up costing about $20 per kit. Next time I plan to keep the cost down to no more than $15 per kit.
After observing what/how the food was consumed I'm confident I can be more efficient in what is provided next time. We wound up with extra bread and meat, but ran out of jelly and cheese. With Pizza My Heart AND Costco pizza Saturday night we wound up with two leftover pizzas (out of 16). I'll get the Peanut Butter and Jelly going day one, provide water, and get more veggie platters.
I think I should charge $50 or $55 per designer badge so that we are not dependent on sponsors to provide food.
Costs and budget for Unpub Protospiel San Jose 2014
The winning game: Monster Hunter by (L to R) Chris Castagnetto, Antonio Romeo and Grant Rodiek.
Why even do the game design contest?
The game design contest is a good exercise for designers, and a fun activity for players. One of the primary goals of the contest is to attract players to the event. Roughly half of the people participating in the contest were players, not designers. The design contest provides another reason attend as a player.
Holding the contest in the larger room was loud, crowded and inconvenient. Next time we will hold the design contest in the smaller room, and put everybody there on notice that they will have to move out for duration of the design contest. Much like we did for the industry panel.
It was hard for some teams to field a team of three people. Next time we will likely allow to man teams.
Designating a winner and providing a certificate on site turned out to be a big plus. The winning game immediately generated interest from a publisher.
Thanks to Franklin Kenter for making the looping slideshow at the registration desk outlining how the games scored and announcing the winner. I would like to plan on doing a slideshow with a photo of each game and each team next time.
Teale Fristoe of Nothing Sacred Games has agreed to take on running the Game Design contest next time. Thank you Teale! Shadow Throne, which Teale tested at Unpub Protospiel is on Kickstarter now: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/77978264/shadow-throne
Lessons Learned:
Hold the design contest in the smaller room at Game Kastle, or a designated area that is not so loud.
Limit the judge panel to five. Enough to break ties, but not enough to cause over crowding.
Use smaller, cheaper kits with less materials. The kits wound up costing $20 each and I got feedback that there was too much stuff in there. It was overwhelming for people.
We may add a theme, requirement or design restriction next time.
Provide recognition for the winner and the teams. A certificate for the top two games and a slideshow of all games and teams.
Game Design Contest Teams
I got a lot of feedback that the industry guest panel was too large and lacked moderation. That is true. This was my first time doing this kind of thing and I executed poorly. Despite the sloppy organization, the panel did provide a great deal of useful information. Several designers expressed that the content was very useful to them and will help prevent costly mistakes.
Next time I plan to do two panels, one Friday night and one Saturday night. They will be limited to 5 or so people each, including a moderator. I have two people who have volunteered to moderate.
It was suggested that we use NPR style written questions. People write out their questions and the moderator uses that bank of questions. Seems like a great idea.
I would like to do one panel titled “Everything but Kickstarter” where talking about Kickstarter is banned in order to focus on other topics. The second panel would be allowed to talk about Kickstarter, and thus would likely be all about Kickstarter. :-)
Lessons Learned:
Split the industry panel into two and limit each panel to no more than five people.
Designate a moderator for each panel.
Provide paper and pens for NPR style written questions collected in advance.
Designate one panel to not discuss Kickstarter at all so that other questions and areas can be addressed.
Thanks to our industry guests who took time to participate in the panel.
From left to right: Richard Bliss, Grant Rodiek, Kevin G. Nunn, Eric Vogel, Ted Alspach, Aldo Ghiozzi, Sam Waller, David Sirlin, Seth Jaffe and Jeff Cornelius.
From left to right: Richard Bliss, Grant Rodiek, Kevin G. Nunn, Eric Vogel, Ted Alspach, Aldo Ghiozzi, Sam Waller, David Sirlin, Seth Jaffe and Jeff Cornelius.