Each year, I go to Protospiel Madison to playtest other game designers’ games and get feedback on my own designs. This year, I wanted to get some final feedback on Doomscroll, our upcoming Kickstarter release on February 20th, 2024. It was fantastic to see the responses to Doomscroll – folks really appreciated how the mechanics aligned with the theme so effectively.
My favorite part of Protospiel Madison, however, is playing other designers’ games and giving them feedback. It’s fun to see what others create and how they work through the design process. Below are some games I playtested and some takeaways from each.
Payback Club – Build a System of Interesting Choices
My first game was a really decision-heavy but fun strategy game called Payback Club from Stan Kardonskiy. In the game, each player was a rough-around-the-edges character from a fictional city full of crime and mafia bosses. We all had the goal of completing jobs and winning gunfights to score reputation, as well as our own unique abilities to complete tied to our backstories. For instance, my character was a bagman who could pay money at unique locations across the map to earn bonuses.
What was really special about the game was its bevy of tough choices. Part of completing jobs involves having the right items on hand to meet the needs of the gig. However, you win showdowns by playing a game of blackjack with the value of your items in your hand. So, do you hold onto your best card to complete jobs? Or do you use them to win showdowns? Those fascinating decisions make Payback Club a riveting game to play.
Rank and File – Innovation in the Party Game Format
I’m cheating a bit here, as I mainly watched and laughed at this game, but Rank and File looked like a lot of fun! This party game from Jeff Grisenthwaithe involves each player drawing cards from piles that include fictional characters, real people, historical people, “create your own” people, and the people at the table. Each player is then assigned a ranking of each of these character types, and they must choose the best characters and category to fit their ranking.
For example, a player might have the category “Most likely to call someone ‘bro’ at a party” and then match it to Nicholas Cage, Cleopatra, themselves, Ebeneezer Scrooge, and Hercules. The rest of the group tries to guess, based on the category and characters, what your order was. Perfect matches, such as guessing what was picked to be most likely, gets +3 points to the team, while “one away” gets +1 point. As you can imagine, fantastic discussions, debates, and laughs ensue during Rank and File. I loved the mash-up of lots of party genres, from the humorous card topics to the infusion of the picker’s selection versus the group’s thoughts. Sometimes the party game genre can feel stale, but games like Rank and File remind us that there are still ways to innovate this type of game.
Restoration – Take Chances in Game Design
The last game I played at Protospiel Madison turned out to be the most unique – Restoration. In the game, designed by Gray Miller, each player’s goal is to collect and assemble the pieces to form a 3×4 painting, or 12 total sections. To acquire pieces, players can draw from a central pile of face-down pieces, negotiate with players to trade pieces, or use ability cards to peek at others’ cards or face-down cards. The first player to both acquire all of the pieces of one work of art and put it together correctly wins.
What I loved about this game was its originality. While many games use puzzle mechanics, few focus on the actual assembly of an image. Even fewer use the player trade and negotiation mechanic, which added a nice flair as we attempted to describe our pieces’ style, color, and details without showing them to other competitors. This game definitely made me excited to try some of those wacky designs I have that seemed too “out there” before.
As always, I cannot wait to get back to Protospiel Madison again next year, and I hope to catch a few other Protospiels around the midwest too.