L
ast night I went to a local gamers' group, and got to help two guys there to play their own game of Blackletter. This was the first time a game was played by two people who weren't already my friends, and it was also the largest scale the game has been played at so far, so it was an exciting night for me. The two of them are wargamers through and through, so their opinions mean a lot to me. They played a 15-point game, constructing their armies, building the terrain, and playing the game with occasional breaks for rules-clarifications in about two hours. The reviews were on the whole very positive -- I had requests for rules for Warlords, and concerns that Shooters may be underpowered, and War Engines perhaps overpowered. I will be taking all this into consideration, though it's a classic gamer-move to declare your chosen unit type to be underpowered when you play your first game. I think it will take more time to tell what real imbalances exist.
It was very cool, though. The game seems to be scaling the way that I want it to, functioning as well with 3-point games as 15. The Morale system is a big hit, and I can tell folks really love making an army using the little cards. I always walk away from nights like that exhausted, with my mind buzzing with ideas. I think I've stumbled upon something of a winner here -- the game is doing what I want it to, against all odds. It's fun; it's easy to learn; there's real strategy required to win; it works on big scales and on small. I'm starting to realize just how much of the world revolves around marketing and sales. I'm going to be asking myself more and more -- how do I sell this game to people? I think it's genuinely good, and I want to get it to them. And I'm the only one standing in the way.