This weekend, Cardboard Fortress Games went down to Baltimore, MD for Unpub 5, a three-day celebration of unpublished board games. We brought RESISTOR_, Kobolds, and a fresh prototype of our brand new game, Lazer Ryderz. Hit the jump to read about our experience, and see some pictures!
We took the trek down from Philly to Baltimore and set up shop in the tag table room. We got there early enough that we could finish up our new prototype for Kobolds, which ended up looking fantastic!
The weekend was a great mix of showing our games off and playing other people’s games. Our most popular game was Kobolds, which everyone wanted to play! Some players even came back for a second go at it, and gave us lots of great feedback. We’ve been tinkering with the rules and adding some things while taking others away, so it was interesting to see how some rules made it much easier, while others seemed to ramp up the difficulty. It still needs some tweaking, but all in all, everyone seemed to love it.
We also got to show off RESISTOR_ a little, though it wasn’t our main focus. We had two guys roll up with their own super fancy curved wooden card holders, which really added a little atmosphere to the game! People were asking us a lot of questions about it, and I wanted to give them more information, but all we could say was that our Kickstarter just wasn’t ready yet. We’ll actually be touching on that in another post later!
Finally, we had Lazer Ryderz, a game that Anthony’s been kicking around in his head for a long time and finally decided to dedicate to paper. It’s a game about laser riders in outer space, fighting against each other and trying to make the other ones crash. Think of it as akin to Tron lightcycles but with four players all fighting in the same playing field in space. Anthony made it out of small, handmade cards in sleeves last week, and we ran a few games on and off the table.
When we weren’t showing our own games off, we were playing everyone else’s, meeting new people, and catching up with old friends. We both played Panda Preserve by Isaac Shalev, Sheep by David Wallin, Phoenix Covenant by Hikari Games, and Fantasy Alpha Team Number One Go! by Mark McGee, but for the most part, we played a lot of games separately. Anthony played Baseball Highlights 2045 by Mike Fitzgerald, Lair by Wee Big Games, and Restaurant Rage by Mark Edwards; I played Elements by Tony Miller, Epic PvP: Fantasy by Fun to 11 (on Kickstarter now!), Cow Panda Panda by Mike Mullins, Doug Doug Goose Caboose by JR Honeycutt, and one of my favorites from the weekend, T.C. Petty’s Don’t Get Eated. And that’s not including lots and lots of Slap .45 by Gnarwhal Studios, Don’t Play with Drugs: The Game by Jordan Martin (with a new expansion!), and Discount Salmon by Water Bear Games, which we played after hours.
It was awesome to have so many people critically play our games and give us feedback, and to also play other people’s games and give them honest feedback as well. I loved being a part of Designer Day, where we got to play games and meet lots of great developers. And Unpub After Dark was a ridiculous amount of fun. Only the need for sleep kept me from staying the entire night!
Cardboard Fortress had an amazing time at Unpub 5. We ran lots of playtests, got a bunch of feedback, made some new friends, played tons of games, and, best of all, got to spend a lot of quality time with brilliant developers who talked to us about game design and development. I highly recommend this for both game developers and playtesters! There’s something for everyone there.
