Happy New Year!
Villainville had its very first public playtest in December and it was a smash success! We had so many sparkles in our eyes we each required two guides to help us stroll back down the red carpet and find our way back to reality.
Okay…maybe not quite. In truth, we found lots and LOTS of bugs, some of them pretty hilarious. A sweet young playtester (ten, I think?) and I got an especially long laugh out of watching the dignified poison dryad, Carissa, spin in lazy circles on her side in the middle of the night market. However, the young playtester in question wrapped up her ferociously focused time in the game by begging her dad to let her have a discord account so she could participate again in future, so we’re counting that a win.
In truth, we found the community of devs and gamers to be super supportive! Not surprising, true, but always a relief when a creative new work is first shown to the public. I don’t think we had more than a momentary lull of a minute or two throughout the day that someone wasn’t playing the game, and we often had a lineup of interested players.
I’m afraid we devs were all too engrossed with chatting about Villainville to take any pics, so our thanks to Brittany (https://www.instagram.com/_bizwell/) and our hosts at the Triangle Arts Collective for our one and only real-live playtester pic!
We’re planning a longer playtest that will be conducted online–either through steam or itch.io, we haven’t decided which–for sometime in February. We may also be taking the game out into the community in March, if we can get paperwork together in time to participate in Playthrough, here in Raleigh. Either way, if you’d like to be a part of future playtests and follow along as Villainville grows, please join our discord here! We’ll be looking for moderators soon, and would love to have you be a part of the community’s growth!
(pic of the not-quite-complete Beast’s Bookery, with the Beast in front. Don’t see Belle? That’s because she spends all her time living her best life *literally* inside the books!)
