A night of gin and irresponsible capitalism...a beginner's guide to playtesting

Last night I went to Hide&Seek's marine themed Sandpit at the National Maritime museum in Greenwich. 

Sandpit is a regular playing and playtesting event where artists, game designers and theatre makers present completely new games. There's running and scurrying and solving and hiding and plotting; paper and brightly-coloured hats and treachery and more.  It's intended primarily for adults.

I was inspired to go after attending another Hide&Seek event in the Science Museum - "Take me to your scientist" which made me realise running around with complete strangers and acting a bit daft is something that is surprisingly fun.

Last night had a selection of different marine themed games to peruse and sign up to.  Not really feeling up to having anything thrown at me, I selected the more sedentary games of Smugglers' Run and 1 <3 Celebes.  

Smugglers' Run, from A Door in a Wall: A game of smuggling with themes of trust, negotiation and corruption. One for those of you with honest smiles and a taste for betrayal.

Smugglers' Run was essentially a game where you had to smuggle contraband though customs.  Two teams - smugglers and custom officials.  Two options - be lawful and carry tea through or be a bit dodgy and attempt to smuggle gin.  If stopped pay the fine or bribe the custom agent.  It was a fairly simple and enjoyable game mechanic, although I found it inherently quite stressful due to the fear factor that customs always causes me!

I <3 Celebes, from Matthew Marcus: A game of (ir)responsible capitalism in 19th century Indonesia.

The second game, was a card based trading game where you had to wander around a metaphorical marketplace, trading various resources in an attempt to form a set.  This game had a high amount of "screwing over" going on as all trades were blind which meant you could lie about what you were trading.   There's nothing that can tell you quite as much about human nature as letting them loose with the sole aim of making the most "money"...

This was the first time that both games had been played and it was an enjoyable experience to be involved in something right at the start, knowing that they would evolve in the future and that all feedback was being taken on board.  The informal nature created an "all in this together" atmosphere which meant that giving constructive criticism felt more natural and encouraged everyone to speak up.  

This way of testing is incredibly powerful, gathering a group of people in a room and telling them that everything that is about to happen is a game instantly makes them react more naturally.   They concentrate on winning and understanding the game and their actions become instinctual.  So, although last night was only about testing games (I hope!), it's clear that games are certainly a good way to trick people to behave more naturally in any kind of testing - be it psychological or product.

All that said though…it was mostly just bloody good fun.  Thanks to Hide&Seek for organising it and all the game creators for testing on us.