Protospiel North 2012

The Second Annual PROTOSPIEL NORTH
Crowne Plaza Hamilton Hotel

Hamilton, Ontario - November 2, 3 & 4, 2012

The quintessential gathering for board game designers in Canada is back!

Yes! Protospiel North is back again for a much-anticipated second year, thanks to the good folks who run HammerCon. Last year, 22 designers and 3 publishers signed up and we did really well for the first time out. Thank you to everyone who made last year’s gathering so memorable!

I am happy to announce that this year the event will be bigger (more space, more days), better organized (better tables, shorter time slots, more mingling) and better hosted (more tools, more support, more catering to your every whim! Remember those surveys?). And if all goes according to plan, more designers, publishers and other industry professionals will be attending as well.

For those who were not with us last year, Protospiel North (P-North) is a gathering of board game designers who come together to play one another's prototypes, and in the process, give each other invaluable feedback. In this open and supportive environment, veteran designers, unpublished newbies, dedicated artists, established publishers, hobby game enthusiasts and industry professionals meet, to network, play-test and contribute to the development and future success of a wide variety of games.

As your host and organizer, my main goal for this year’s event is to improve overall networking and to provide more support and information for new designers. For this purpose, Ross Fleming (CEO of Lion Rampant Distributors and Tartan Grizzly Publishing), Josh Cappel (professional artist and designer of Wasabi), Sen-Foong Lim (designer, Train of Thought, Belfort) and myself, Francois Valentyne (designer of Ticket to Ride: Legendary Asia), will be leading a number of round-table discussions and answering questions all weekend about designing games: the creative process, making prototypes, play-testing, the role of the artist, dealing with publishers, self-publishing, manufacturing, distribution and retail sales. If you are new to designing or want some insight into the hobby game industry, be sure to pick our brains while attending P-North. And if we can’t answer your question, I’m sure we can find someone who can!

*** New for this year is the Playtester’s Passport Contest, based on Jay Cormier’s suggestion to improve mingling. Designers will be signing your passport after each play-test session they run. Accumulate the most signatures to win some great game prizes! Details, rules and prizes will be available before P-North starts, so check back here later.

*** Also new for this year: there is no need to register a game with HammerCon when signing up for P-North. We will be focused on running play-test sessions in open-table format for the entire 3 days. If you also want to schedule a game session with the general public, i.e. run one of your's or someone else's finished games in a convention time slot or even test one of your prototypes with a non-designer audience, you are more than welcome to do this. All you need to know about how to do that is right here: Add a Game.

I should also mention that there will another Speed Gaming event this year. I know those who participated last year had a hoot doing it. More details about this will be added to the News section in due course.

>>>> Pre-registration is already underway at the HammerCon IV site. Anyone who wants to be part of Protospiel North needs to sign up for the Con. On-line instructions and registration can be found here: HammerCon Registration. <<<<

For more information about how P-North is organized this year, please consult the Protospiel North FAQ.

To find out who's attending, what events are planned, and more, read the Protospiel North News. I will be updating the news as it happens.

Looking forward to reconnecting with everyone from last year, and meeting many new faces this year! See you in November. And remember:

You can never do too much play-testing!

Cheers!
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Protospiel North is organized and hosted by Francois Valentyne. For a short bio, see his profile on BoardGameGeek. If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact him at fvalentyne@gmail.com.

Protospiel North is an independently organized event. It has the same goal and embodies the same concepts as the Protospiel event held in Ann Arbor, Michigan, every year since 2001. If you are unfamiliar with the original, you should visit the Protospiel website for more information.