I spent today down at Mantic HQ with a bunch of 16 playtesters, battling through the Mars Attacks scenarios once more to see if there were any final tweaks and clarifications needed. As Mantic are overflowing their current office space the gamers had to cram themselves and their battlefields into every spare corner of the photography room, corridors and so on. Meanwhile, I clambered about over cases of figures and piles of photography equipment to make my rounds of the various games.
And what a lot of games!
Most folk managed 6 or more during the day, plus several briefing and de-briefing sessions and a final show and tell. So it was a busy day. It was also a very useful day in terms of finessing things, and I’d like to offer a hearty thank you to all who attended. The game will be better because of your efforts.
I won’t bother you with details, other than to say that there was nothing major to fix. It was, instead, a case of a slight tweak here and an extra line of explanation there. All these things will go to make things clearer in the final product, which is great. As ever, it was interesting to hear two groups tell me that the same scenario was unwinnable from both sides (so it was perfectly balanced ;P ).
After all the Mars Attacks was done for the day, we had a group of tired, but happy folk, who were still remarkably alert. That was intriguing in itself as the end of a day of normal tournament play (where you might play 3 or perhaps 4 games at a pinch) usually sees a room of zombies at the end of the day. Anyway, as people weren’t chafing at the bit to leave or so zonked they couldn’t speak, I ran one of the core concepts for DreadBall Xtreme past them to see how they coped while Stew did a show and tell with some cool models and art. A useful straw poll for us, and a nice little bonus for those that attended and helped out with MA.
And no, I can’t tell you what those things were. Not yet. But you don’t have long to wait now…
