MACE/2006
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[edit] David Artman
[edit] Saturday, 9-ish AM
I arrived a tad late, due to confusing highways around High Point and having to drive from Durham. But by 9:30 AM I had four pyramid games setup and ready for the browsers:
- Armada, to show boardless and miniature elements of the pyramids (I was in the mini and board games room)
- Martian Mud Wrestling, a pure strategy offering
- Three-way Martian Chess, to show off Eeyore's boards and multiplayer potential
- Initial koans for Zendo, with a yin-yang symbol arranged out of the marking stones
And I waited. When folks wandered by to look, I asked them what types of board or mini games they like, and tried to offer to teach them one of the many games one can play with pyramids. But I think the "first day jitters" had folks reluctant to be the first to sit or to commit to a game, even a ten-minute one! Fortunately, another unoccupied GM came over to play a few rounds of Martian Mud Wrestling, and after about an hour, I had one more guy learning Martian Chess and loving it. Though I didn't get to demo to a lot of folks before the session end at 1 PM, I was warmed up on some of my pitches and ready for the "real" session: afternoon.
[edit] Saturday, 1:30 PM
The second session of the day was, put simply, jammed. I played or supervised at least ten games each of MMW, Martian Chess, and Zendo; I explained a few other games (like Armada) though I didn't get any takers; and I played a few rounds of Martian Frisbee before it was deemed "too random." Zendo was a popular favorite, but Martian Chess was the show-stopper. I had a guy who was (he said) a NASA engineer--funny coincidence, eh?--who was simply flabbergasted by the nuances of the game; and another guy was a chess coach for the high school at which he works, and he resolved to order some for his kids to learn MC. And when he saw Eeyore's board and how it allows 2-6 players... well, let's just say the guy needed some time alone to collect himself. Yet another player--a fellow Durhamite and, now, a new Demo Rabbit--was so enamored of Martian Chess and the pyramids in general that he literally bought all the Treehouse stashes at the convention, from Sci Fi Genre (only four, sadly). And he wanted at least one more (to make a five-full-stash set), so he has probably already gone to SFG this week, to get his final Xeno stash and (I bet) five Normal stashes. He also bought Volcano caps at the con... even though he was a stash short! Between that guy and the chess coach, I'd say the whole weekend was a success.
In summary, I went from slow to slammed, in the morning and afternoon sessions; and I was actually involved in a demo or game for approximately 7 out of the 8 hours I worked that day.
[edit] Sunday, 2 pm
I am sad to report that Sunday was not as successful. The con was winding down fast by this point in time, though I saw many of my Saturday fans early in the session. While I demoed Martian Chess for a new player, they settled down to play some Martian Chess; and then they wanted to learn something all-new (to them) and so I hit upon Ice Age (to use my Volcano board for something other than MMW).
Ice Age was soon judged to be broken, after about 12 straight defeats of the Mastodons. The rules as written on SLICK and the wiki just don't work, but they can be fixed with one rule: "A particular Mastodon can not be captured by a Caveman that began its move adjacent to that Mastodon." Without that rule, it was trivially easy to setup the Cavemen such that one was usually one step from any open square and, thus, could step over to any Mastodon movement location, to get three or four adjacent. I intend to contact the author for clarifications, so that I can include Ice Age in my upcoming free PDF "Pyramid Schemes: 18 Games for Icehouse Pieces" (which should be hosted by Looney Labs soon!).
One of the Ice Age "testers"--I can't call him a player until the game is fixed--had come to every session, if only for a game or two, and so I awarded him with my little "prize support": a surplus all-orange stash and a printout of my other free PDF offering (pending approval and completion of more games) "Pocket Pyramids: 6 Games Using a Single Stash of Icehouse Pieces". As he was the friend of the guy who bought up all the Xeno Treehouse stashes at the con (yeah, all four of them), he and his buddy were stoked: that stash allows them to field enough same-color pieces to support up to three Martian Chess players without having to use a different color. (I even advised the big buyer that he could, if he so wished, purchase single pieces from Looney Labs directly, to make up a "six-stack stash" of his favorite color for 2-player MC... was that a no-no? He's surely going to buy a full stash of every color, anyway....)
After my Saturday fans left for good, I had one last couple show up to try a game or two, and I taught them Ice Sickle, because the woman said she liked games like the classic peg game. We did a three-way game (yes, it's possible) and we each had a turn to be the starter (to place and to move). It ended in a tie between the guy and me, and he won fairly handily in a single-game tie-breaker. Frankly, by then, I was mentally exhausted and just couldn't visualize anymore. It was 5 pm, and I packed up to leave the almost-empty room and con. Though the usual Post Con Depression started setting in (I am such a softy, at the end of a good con), I felt proud of my work as a demoer and confident that it was worthwhile.
All total, I was busy demoing for 10 hours out of the 11 that I served as a demoer at MACE.
Next year, I will demand a table as ideal as Hope Evey's was: in the main hall! I think if more wandering consters had set eyes upon the pyramids, I could have done double the demos; but I was in the minis and board games room and, thus, only seen by those folks who were already interested in such games. But I bet card players would have dug many of them (or at least dug the pyramids as life counters), and RPGers always look at them with an eye toward how they work as in-a-pinch miniatures. Yes, next year (Trinoc*coN first, then MACE) I will try very hard to get hall visibility, or I will litter the rooms with signs.
In conclusion, based on my experience at MACE, I would like to suggest that Looney Labs give very serious consideration to releasing a Martian Chess set, suitable for up to 6 players. You'd want to include five Treehouse stashes (to get five full stashes) and an additional, solid-color stash in one of the Treehouse colors used, so that 2- and 3-player games could be monochrome (and so that Volcano could be played, or any other six-way game). Yes, it only takes four stashes to support six players of Martian Chess, but two more stashes makes it possible to play other full-stash games. Hmmm... so maybe the sixth shouldn't match one of the other five, even though it's really cool to see a monochrome game.
In addition to the stashes, include six decently made Eeyore boards, perhaps with each a particular color that matches the Treehouse colors used--this was deemed desirable by players who had trouble with the initial notion of "my board, my pieces;" though I can argue just as well that color is not as good as Eeyore's black, white, and gray gradients for other games. Six stashes, six Eeyore boards, and a nice box to carry them in: figure about $50, similar to the old Zendo sets, if you can give any kind of break on the MSRP of a stash, when selling six at a time. Well in line with the price points of other board games with similar components, but with six stashes and six Eeyore boards, someone could play scores of games, not just one.
Put the bean counters on it... I think it could really fly, both with "conventional" gamers as well as family gamers, chess heads (who'll buy any game with the word "chess" in it; I know!), and folks who appreciate the flexibility of pyramids to play TONS of games. --David Artman, November, 2006
