Day 17 - Beta-test a Game

Date: January 23rd, 2010

Perhaps the Holy Grail of nerd-dom is the opportunity to beta-test a game.  You get to see it before anybody, you get to help fix problems keeping it from reaching its full potential for awesomeness and did I mention that you get to see it before anybody else?  As a recoving Warcraft player, I understand the deep and abiding honor that is the chance to beta-test.

So when my friend Ryan asked if I would help him test out a game he invented, I recognized it as the crowning jewel in my dorky dorky crown that it was.  No, actually, his game just sounded really cool.  Plus, I don't know if you've met Ryan, but he's one of the nicest, most brilliant people that I've ever met. 

Here we see him dealing with the complexities of the modern trash bag.

His game is amazingly interesting.  It is inspired by euchre, trumpet and a few other really cool card games that everyone should know.  He designed a completely different deck structure and added some really cool complexities to it.  I won't go into further detail cause that would, ya know, completely defeat the purpose of getting to see it first. 

This picture makes sense to me.  Jealous?

So let me tell you all a little about the actual day of the beta-testing.  The day before (Friday), I talked to Ryan and told him I was getting really concerned because I didn't know what I was going to do for my new thing.  I committed to judging the speech tournament, but it wasn't just on Friday - it was most of the day on Saturday as well.  I was very concerned that I wouldn't be able to find something to do.  He told me he had time off work in the evening on Saturday and that we could test out his game.

We decided that would be the thing to do, but there was another problem.  We hadn't actually talked to anyone else about this and the game is a four person minimum game.  While we could run through things, it wouldn't be the same as getting to play it out.  We had our plan, but not the people to do it.  About an hour after that I got a message from Jihan.  She was wondering if I was available on Saturday to hang out and.......... play board games.  She was having a small get together and wondered if I'd like to come.

It was one of those moments (and I've been having them more and more) that just seem to make things fall completely into place.  Jihan, Jaad and their friends were wonderful enough to let us play Ryan's game a couple times and offer some advice for him to perfect it.  I am so deeply thankful to know wonderful people like the Nicholases.    There are some people you meet who help restore and renew your faith - they are people like that.  I know its a little bit of a tangent from game-testing, but it needed to be said.

From left to right: Ryan, amazing, awesome, super-cool, Me.

Game testing was a lot of fun overall.  It was fun to look at a game from a different perspective - one where the little details matter because they could change before the final product comes out.  In the meantime, Ryan is tweaking the game little by little until its ready.  When it is, I promise to let y'all know where you can get your mitts on it.  I love the work-in-progress and I know the game will be even better.