Playtesting

I've moved house twice this year. Once from York to Bedfordshire (160 miles / 270 km) in January for The Wife's new job. Then again in June from the rented house in Bedfordshire to our own place in Northamptonshire (8 miles / 13 km).

While lots of things about the move have been awesome (nice new home, a garden, more space, meeting new people, swanky new office) one of the things I've really struggled with is getting gaming in. In York I used to go to Paul's games nights twice a week (about a mile away), and I tried to get to the Beyond Monopoly! club whenever I could (it was on twice a month so I missed lots but there were plenty of options). In addition, I held a playtesting night at mine once a week too.

Since moving down here I've found a group through BoardGameGeek that I play with on Tuesday evenings, and I've even managed to get along to one of their Sunday sessions yesterday. They're a great bunch of guys, but the 15 mile trek is a lot less convenient than Paul's games night was in York :-( In particular, if I can't drive due to MS there's no gaming for me :-(

I found a club on Thursday nights in Newport Pagnell, but since we moved the second time the 25 mile trip has got in the way of me actually attending. Last month I went along to another club in Leighton Buzzard, which was about 40 miles, but for a full day of Saturday gaming it was worth it :-)

Playtesting is even harder to arrange. There's no guarantee of the quality of a prototype (in terms of game play - the build quality doesn't bother me), so I feel uncomfortable asking people to potentially waste a good chunk of what might be their only games night for several weeks on a game that might be rubbish. So I'd much rather do a playtesting session, where everyone knows what they are letting themselves in for. I don't know anyone who lives locally, so I'm limited to people I find through my games nights, games clubs and BGG. Since all these people live at least 15 miles away (often significantly more than that), it's not so easy to arrange. I've started having sessions at Terry's house (again about 15 miles away - I've officially moved to the arse-end of nowhere!), and ideally I'd like to do them around once a week - I'll have to see how much I can impose on Terry's generosity!

Despite all the problems I had a really good week's gaming last week. I went along on Tuesday to Tony's, then with Tony off work I went over to his again on Thursday during the day for some proper games and a playtest. Friday was more playtesting at Terry's (six plays of four different games), and then on Sunday I got over to CJ's for another afternoon of gaming (including another playtest). This week is looking good too - Tuesday evening at Tony's, playtesting during the day on Wednesday or Thursday, I'm seeing Paul in York on Friday and then hopefully CJ's again on Sunday. Hopefully I'm getting things sorted down here now.