Birmingham Playtest Meetup

The Birmingham Playtest is back at Griffins Gaming on Thursday 29 October, a night for board game designers to bring their work-in-progress and get it played. It's a gathering for people at all stages of development, and the games on the table are often home-made — some still on scraps of paper or handwritten cards, others a bit further along. The whole point is to get your game in front of other designers and playtesters and hear what they think.

On arrival, you'll sit at a playtest table with two others. Each person gets an hour to playtest the games of the other attendees, followed by a short debrief where you can talk through what worked and what didn't. It's a straightforward trade: you give your time to someone else's game, and you get the same in return. If you're bringing a game to be playtested, there is one condition: you have to stay for the whole thing, from 6pm to 9pm, so that everyone gets their fair share of feedback.

It's a good spot if you've got something you've been tinkering with in your spare time and want to see how it lands with people who actually know their way around a rulebook. You don't need a polished prototype to take part — the rough-and-ready stuff is exactly what the night is for. If you're not designing anything yourself, you can still come along and playtest others' games.

Griffins Gaming is at Rea Court, 40 Trent St, Birmingham B5 5NL. The main session runs from 18:00 to 21:00, though attendees are welcome from 17:30 if you want to get settled in before things kick off. Tickets are handled through meetup.com.