I've Been Looking For A New Direction, Something You Know I've Gotta Say, I've Been Looking For A New Connection

--"New Direction", S Club 8

I was recently invited to showcase my card game, Kings of the Jungle Gym, at Protospiel 2009 in Santa Monica this weekend. Not only do I consider an honor to be invited, but I very much also consider it to be one of the highlights of this year so far. It will be the first time playtesting any game of mine in public as opposed to with just the same group of rapscallions I play with. It will also be the first time I will have to answer questions—for an hour no less--about the game-making process and mechanical decisions I made in brainstorming the idea. Hopefully, all goes well with the first playtest group because there’s a good chance I might have to run more than one session this weekend—possibly two or three sessions.

It’s been said that, “there are no bad products, just bad prices” and I’m hoping that’s true because there will be a few representatives from game publishers present at the event. I’m a little nervous that this will be my one and only shot at realizing one of my smaller dreams, that of getting one of game designs published and out on the marker. I’m worried that I haven’t done enough, polished enough, and worked enough of the kinks out in the design. I mean—I think it’s a solid game. It’s challenging enough to provide a challenge to everyone at the table, yet not enough of a brain-burner to turn people off. It should play under and hour, but definitely takes more than thirty minutes to get through. I’ve always felt that this range is just right if one is trying to cater a game to the casual crowd. The biggest thing I worry about is that the game’s theme might turn people off. After all, it’s not everyone who can appreciate the subtle humor of a game my friend Casey described as “The Sopranos Meets Sesame Street”.

Truth be told, I’m nervous because this is the first opportunity to take something I created and present it to the world at large. Yes, I have my blog. Yes, I’ve shown my writings to more than a few people over the years. However, now that I’m contemplating it, this will be the first time anyone and everyone can walk off the street (or drive, or what have you) and just sit down at the table where I’m demonstrating Kings and basically demand to be entertained. For the most part none of my friends will be there. Nobody in my family is choosing to make it out there. Nope, it will be me explaining the rules of the game, playing, conducting surveys, and then taking an hour’s length of questions. Not just once. Maybe two or three times this weekend. I won’t have the camaraderie to sway the vote to people give it a chance. I won’t have prior dealings to establish the merits of my ideas and creative choices. I won’t have the “innocent before guilty” mentality pervading the room when I sit down. I very well may have people who thoroughly dislike the game before they even place the first card. It may be that type of crowd.

I’m worried that I’m going to handle any sort of criticism poorly.

I’m worried that I’m going to take their slings and arrows as a slight against me as opposed as a slight against my game.

But just as disconcerting is the notion that people might really like it. I’ve been buoying myself all week, ever since I found out, that this will the first step to seeing my name on the shelf of some game store or possibly seeing my name precede the title of the game. It would be so intrinsically badass to see “E. Patrick Taroc’s Kings of the Jungle Gym” at Game Empire or The Warhouse one day. It would be beyond any expectations I have now to live to see the day when my name alone would be enough to sell a game the way Knizia or Kleiza does. And that’s what I’m concerned about too, that as much as I’m thinking everything could turn out to be blech, that there’s still too big a part of my mind that is holding out hope this could make me insanely happy and satisfied. I don’t want to put all my eggs in this particular basket because there is a good chance not much will come of it.

But when you’ve already been in contact with one small game publisher out of New England and when you’ve already heard interest from two others, you can’t help but to think this is a much bigger deal than you originally thought. I want everything to go smoothly. I want people to like the game on its own merits. I want people to be interested in the amusing anecdote that originally made me conceive of the idea. I want this to be the stepping stone that I really think this is.

What I don’t want it to be is the time I look back as my one chance to make the game-winning shot where I choked.

It’s a good game—a great game, in fact—but the way I’m thinking that’s not even the point. The way I’m thinking now is that I’m a semi-good person and that I really deserve this shot at being happy.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers