MeepleCon 2025 Summary#
In the previous meeting, Abhishek de-briefed about his time at MeepleCon, which was overall very successful. Some notes:
- MeepleCon was a learning experience in understanding gaming community.
- All the game showcasers were veterans.
- Games take their own time,
- MohitPrinters: has games printing monopoly in India. Mohit was impressed by Pralay.
- His advice: do not worry about design, work on the game mechanics.
- Prototyping ballpark estimate for prototyping is 50000-60000 INR.
- Game publishing through a company vs doing independently. Do we want to sell the game and get royalty? Or do we want to publish independently. A call needs to be taken independently.
- Game sessions were chaotic, to manage by himself (Abhishek). Some games were popular, in prime locations. People had also come to play specific games. There was a running crowd, many were interested, but most had to leave for another game. Since MeepleCon was not checking for tickets, mall-going crowd came in. Abhishek had to repeatedly explain the game to those who could not play in the end.
- Game explanations: Abhishek tried out multiple ways of explanation. “Teaching of the game” is a huge component of the game. Pralay’s explanation script needs refining. What matters?
- Order of explanation: Jalwa-first? Janta-first?
- Which hand gestures to use?
- Directly jump into the game? Going forward: we need to have defined versions of the rules explanations and document how the players quickly pick up.
- Some name changes: Confidence instead of betting. Dominate the game instead of president.
- Cheat sheet on the board was great!
- Have illustrations for all dilemma cards.
- The trailer gave a player a different view of the game. He had not realised how climate-focused it was. Do we want to have a Don’t Look Up model or be more explicit about climate change (at least to an extent we already have)
- Game feels repetitive; time to think about Pralay cards! Pralay cards be game-related chaos not climate-related chaos. Things like: Global Financial Crisis, Global Pandemic, etc.
- Make Khayal dynamically change on the board through the gaming process.
Some initial ideas:
- Three pillars: economic, environment, justice janta. That determines how Khayal is also determined?
- Apply VBN theory. Each dilemma can have: value, belief and norm.
- What is our game? Research project or game-game?
- None of the games Abhishek saw were perfect, it’s okay.
- AbstractGame: online game session with their community.
Other Notes#
- Play test online. Abhishek suggested that we look at Screentop (https://screentop.gg/). Can be directly exported through Dextrous.
- Legal aspects: Followed up with Hemansi. If no response by Friday, explore alternatives.