Bad Jackson!

Tomorrow, I'm off to York to see my friend Paul for some playtesting. I've yet to set up a playtest group down here in the South, and it's being made slightly more difficult by the distances. In York I was spoilt. I had a decent-sized games club and several gamer chums all within a mile or two from my house. I could easily arrange a weekly playtesting night, and get people to travel the short distances to my house. In addition, Paul is around during the day, so Paul and I could do some playtesting during the middle of the day, when I'm working (playtesting counts as work!).

Now we've moved to a small village of maybe 2,000 people. It's in a rural area, the nearest large town (80,000 people) is about nine miles away. I've joined a couple of game groups, one 15 miles away, the other 25 miles away, with whom I get some regular gaming in on weekday evenings. These club members are probably the most likely candidates for a playtesting group, but the distances mean that people may well not be interested in trekking to mine (or a local pub function room) to play games that might be rubbish (submission quality is a mixed bag, some good, some not so good - it's hard to tell beforehand which category it falls in!).

In the meantime, I'm pissing my environmental credentials up the wall and driving 160 miles to hang out with Paul tomorrow. It'll be good to see him, and it will mean a good few hours of playtesting with someone who's opinion I trust, but it's a long way and a lot of fuel...