So back in September I attended the Boston Festival of Indie Games. BFIG is a unique event. It is a showcase for independent digital and tabletop games. I focused on the tabletop section. As the showcase description implies the event is primarily about showing off indie games.
The games being shown range from prototypes looking for feedback to already published games that you can buy at the show. Regardless of the polish of the game BFIG is about playing. Depending on the game, you might play the whole thing or just a small section.
I’ve been going to BFIG for the past 4 years and the show draws a decent crowd. This year was no exception. Every table was almost constantly filled with players. Which is great if your goal is to show your game to as many people as possible. It’s a bit inconvenient if, like me, you are a podcaster trying to get interviews with designers. I was able to catch people when they had a free minute or two and managed to get 39 interviews during the event.
It was so many interviews that it will be two episodes. You can listen to episode 22 and 23 at www.theboardgameworkshop.com. Episode 22 should have gone up on October 4th but due to some ongoing server issues it has been delayed. Hopefully everything is working by the time you read this. Episode 23 will be out October 18th.
While my day was mostly spent walking around and getting interviews I did have the chance to play 3 games. Shiki, VISITOR in Blackwood Grove, and You’ve Been Poisoned.
Shiki is a card drafting game where you make haikus. Each round you have a standard pick and pass draft then you use your drafted cards to make a line of your haiku. Each card has a single word on it and one of the four seasons or no season. At the end of the game you will score points for having the most cards in your haiku of a certain season and also for how closely you matched the 5/7/5 syllable style of a haiku. This is where the game gets tough. For the first and second round you don’t have to use all of the cards you drafted, but they stay in your supply and you must use them all by round 3. So getting 5 syllables in the third line takes some planning. Focusing on a season to get the bonus is pretty simple though.
The one downside to this game is that your actual haiku doesn’t matter. No points for style. But, for me, making a haiku was the best part. You could maximize points by drafting the right sized and seasoned words with no regard for the poem’s content. But I’d rather lose the game and make a lovely haiku like the one I made in the demo game.
glisten firefly valley
its this shade so frog death
VISITOR in Blackwood Grove is a rule making game for a minimum of 3 players. One player is the alien, one is the kid, and the rest are different government agencies. The alien and the kid are on a team against the government agencies. The game has a deck of cards with pictures of every day items like a car, a whale, a pie, a smart phone, etc.
At the start of the game the alien player makes up a rule. During the game the kid and the agencies will attempt to get cards through the alien’s forcefield. If the item on the card follows the alien’s rule, the card gets through. If not, it doesn’t. Some of these cards will be public knowledge for all players and some will only be visible to the player that tried them. The goal of the kid and the agencies is to figure out the rule. They then have to prove it by drawing 4 cards and correctly determining which ones will make it through the forcefield. If the agencies win the alien and kid lose but if the kid wins the alien also wins. So the alien must make a rule that the agencies will not figure out but the kid can.
It’s very light on rules and allows for a lot of creativity and trying to read other players which is what I enjoy in a rule making game. The designer wrote an interesting article about it on their website. http://resonym.com/the-unique-mechanics-of-visitor/
I really enjoy rule making games like Mastermind, and VISITOR in Blackwood Grove offers more freedom in rule creation and more players. I’m not surprised it won the audience choice award at the show. Definitely worth checking out.
You’ve Been Poisoned is an escape room style series of puzzles shrunk down to fit on a table and last only 10 minutes. This was an interesting thing. It occupies a space between a full on escape room and the various escape room at home games. Though it’s quicker than both. The quality of the setup is more like a traditional escape room and with it’s relatively small footprint I could see this being popular at conventions.
Overall BFIG was a lot of fun and very exhausting. If you are a designer it’s a great place to show off your game to a lot of people. If you’re in the area it’s definitely worth checking out.
You’ve been Poisoned sounds interesting.