GAMERT (Gaming) Round Table

Did you come to the Open Gaming Night for 2009 at ALA?  If so, we'd love to hear your feedback.

 

What worked?  What didn't?  We want to do this again - how do we make it a better experience for you?

Great crowd, good snacks, interesting games!  I was happy to see the board game tables PACKED at the beginning of the night! 

I think next year we could provide a handout with a list of games on the menu. Denise Hudson kindly posted a list of board games on her blog at http://www.blogster.com/chicagoala/gaming.

I'd love to encourage people to bring their handhelds (DS & PSP) and laptops for an impromptu LAN party/handheld event, but laptops might be dependent on Internet access. 

One disappointing thing was the number of saved songs we couldn't play in Rock Band - I am not sure if this was because of the lack of internet access or not having an Xbox Live account.

Some kind of big game over the course of the evening to encourage people to try many different stations would be fun, even if it's just a scavenger hunt or bingo sheet kind of thing - an incentive might be to complete the sheet to enter a drawing for a small prize.

This would also encourage more turnover. I noticed the same people were at Rock Band all night, and not cognizant of people who were waiting for a turn -- I unfortunately observed more instrument swapping than turn-taking. I got to drum early in the evening, and then moved on to other things. When I went back at the end of the evening, I ended up using my spot in line to get people who hadn't played at all into the rotation. At the end of the night, I was surprised and disappointed to witness a singer (without an ALA badge/nametag) grilling people next in line for drums as to their level of expertise; seeking "someone who could actually play" so the song wouldn't fail again.  :(

The spirit of Open Gaming Night is to give people unfamiliar with gaming a chance to experience it, and to risk failing in a safe environment, and I should have communicated that before the singer walked away in a snit after someone else asked for a (first) chance at the mic before the event ended. Teens at library events self-regulate turn-taking better than I saw last night, and next year, I'll be stationing myself at Rock Band to make sure everyone who wants a turn, gets one.

 

Game On! (Neal Schuman, 2009) www.neal-schuman.com/go

I liked the fact that there were so many board games there, and that so many people were playing them.  As for the video game selection, it felt very basic and safe.  Every game that was there should have been there because they promoted social interaction and cooperative play--something that works for every library gaming program.  However, a significant portion of patrons attending gaming programs are hardcore gamers that thrive on competition.  DDR, Boom Blox, and Mario Kart were good selections, but I would have given anything to see Halo 3 or Street Fighter IV.  It would have been a great opportunity to instruct librarians in how to play these games and discuss how to integrate them into programming.

...about what you said, and I think that many of the problems with Rock Band could have been fixed by using the sequel.  It has the No Fail Mode option, where no matter how badly somebody is performing, the song goes on.  There were a lot of people failing out early in songs, which is perfectly fine, but if there's a song that you really love and you only get to play half (or less) of it, then of course you're going to stick around for another crack at it.  Putting on No Fail Mode means that everybody can enjoy playing at their level while the flow remains uninterrupted and that people are less intimidated by the game--and hence more willing to throw up their hand and say "I got next" instead of just hanging out and waiting until somebody puts down their controller; it's the primary reason I chose RB2 over Guitar Hero: World Tour for Wayne County.

So, to use my own model of how to develop gaming experiences..

 

We need to determine what the goals are for Open Gaming Nights.  We talked about doing assessment next year, but in order to properly assess it, we need to know what the goals are.

 

Too many libraries pick a game first ("I want to do Halo") without starting with the bigger question - what is the goal?    A game like Halo, which requires significant skill to play and rewards that skill, would be frustrating to many librarians whom have never played a FPS.  (A way around this would be to have "Newbies Only" rounds to allow new people to explore the game without someone just pwing and cackling.)

Now that I have the addresses of people who came to the panel the next day, we can ask some questions about games they would like to learn.

If one goal is to allow people to show off their skills, then a tournament would be a good choice, but I'm not sure that's the type of environment we want to promote in this event. 

 My goal in the board game space is to expose people to a variety of game types that they haven't seen before.  That's why there's no Scrabble, Monopoly, or traditional cards, or tournaments; the goal isn't to allow people to demonstrate their prowess.

 

But, we need to do this more systematically and figure out the goals for the event.

 

It was totally our intent to use Rock Band 2, but when we put the disc in the Xbox, it seemed to have gotten scratched somehow and wouldn't play. We were *lucky* to have the RB1 disc with us.

We had also taken song requests to download, and unfortunately the staff member who was going to do this for us lost his internet access for two weeks (thanks, Rogers Cable).

So, we do have RB2 and will always try to use the latest version in the future. It was a good heads up for me that even though the disc was working a few months before, always test before you ship the equipment.

I loved seeing some hard to come by games to expose people to the variety out there -- I played Finito! and can definitely see layering that into any board game gathering -- but I think it is important to include middle-ground games that are commonly available. By that, I mean games people might already have heard of or seen before but not yet experienced... and not just the newest coolest thing recently discovered by someone who's an old hand at games. We're asking some folks to take a little leap of faith into game play at all. It may help them make that transition if they finally get their hands on Apples to Apples, Fluxx, Blokus, Set, Tsuro or some of the other games that have been around a little while.

Don't get me wrong: I want to see those shiny new toys come out too because some of the attendees are also old hands looking for the next nifty goodie. I also agree that the really old standards of Monopoly and Scrabble aren't useful; everyone already understands them. That's why I'm suggesting the middle ground games which have the added advantage that there are likely to be experienced attendees there willing and able to teach the games to new players.