Speaker A [00:00:03]: Well, hello, everybody. This is my ask me anything, call with the mentors for, August 14, 2023, right before early bird sales closed for the August event in 2023. And so I'll just I'm recording this call. So if anybody doesn't wanna have their voice be recorded, but they wanna ask a question, go ahead and put it in mentor calls text channel right above this voice channel in the discord server. But otherwise, floor is open and go ahead and just ask me your questions if you have any. Speaker B [00:00:41]: Heather, how are you doing today? Speaker A [00:00:44]: I'm doing pretty good. I've been doing a lot of troubleshooting and building and that sort of thing today. Oh, but I did get I do have a beautiful thing to say that I would be lovely to have recorded here is that I have been sharing in some Facebook groups, over the last couple of days about Protospiel online coming up. And one comment that I read in like a new group that I haven't been very active in before, but I just sort of announced and explained this is what Protospiel bill is, if you want this kind of thing, this is the place for you. Someone that I don't know at all, said a very nice thing about just Protospiel Network in general online or otherwise. This person's name is Bain Williams. Maybe somebody here knows this person. But, they said, I can highly recommend Protospiel to anyone thinking of signing up. Speaker A [00:01:40]: I've worked with numerous designers who have come through the doors of both the real life and online events, and their games are always in much better state than what I usually see. While I can't speak to the event itself, the results speak for themselves. Isn't that nice? Speaker C [00:01:54]: Oh, nice to hear. Speaker A [00:01:56]: That was awesome to hear. Yeah. Speaker D [00:01:57]: Lovely. Speaker A [00:01:59]: So that was one thing I woke up to, and that was a good start to the day. Speaker B [00:02:05]: I I here's a legitimate question. What makes a good mentor for Protospiel online? Speaker A [00:02:12]: I think past experience with the the event itself is the first requirement because you'll be there to help explain to people what the experience is going to be like when they join the event live since a lot of things in the server are quiet and closed down in between, like, when people register and come in at first, they can't see everything. So a big part of what the mentor program is meant to do is give people somebody to practice using Discord with and to help walk them through maybe even practicing certain systems on a live call sometimes, with, like, mock ups that we'll have in the server so it won't be as new and intimidating on Friday or Saturday morning when people join for the first time. Speaker B [00:03:01]: Awesome. Thank you. Speaker D [00:03:04]: Question. Heather, can you walk us through the, what are the sort of games that, we have going on? I know we've got the the shout out palooza. We've got the secret agent hidden name game. I just wanna make sure I have them all under my belt because I have not Sure. Played all of them very well. Speaker A [00:03:26]: No problem. There's one that you might have heard of from the past, which is the partner scavenger hunt, and that is on break. It may or may not come back. If it comes back, I think it'll be very different than it's been in the past. It just we've kind of sunsetted the way that used to be because it's not fun enough for the amount of effort it takes. So if there if you're kind of, like, counting in your head and you feel like there's one missing, that's the one we're not going to be doing for the first time in August 2023. The ones that we do have going for August 2023 are bingo is kind of the granddaddy meta game that, gives people the biggest ability to earn entries in the giveaway drawing that happens after the event because you earn entries for every 2 squares you have filled in and, like, extra good entries if you get bingo patterns. So, bingo should be played every time you play someone else's prototype. Speaker A [00:04:24]: So not your own, but when you play for another designer, there'll be things on your bingo card that are qualities of this playtest, things about the designer or the game. And sometimes you might strike up a conversation with the designer to say, would you say this uses the drafting mechanic and or ask them questions about themselves so you can tell if you can take one of those, fields and you can print that bingo card out or you can fill it in. It's a it's a it's a web app tool that we use to play the bingo. You can also mark it in your web app if you don't have a printer and then just download it, into your computer and submit it after the event is over if you don't wanna print it out. I like to print mine out because I use it as a journal of everything I've played. So I'll write the name of the designer and the name of the game in the square that I use, and then I get, like, a really fast journal. That's one of my, favorite things to do over weekend myself. And, I I I don't wanna say off the top of my head how many, entries you get for a bingo pattern, but you can get multiple bingo patterns on the card. Speaker A [00:05:28]: We do not just rows, but also, like, the 6 pack shape and, like, the diamond shape in the middle and all that kind of stuff. So it's for it's even for kind of for bingo aficionados, the people who actually go to bingo halls and play all the different patterns. Some things will be maybe recognizable to that type of person. And then, secret identities is a very, very low, complexity thing to do, which is that you're when you join your team, you're told within Discord what your secret identity is. You also know what your secret identity is the moment you register if you, read your registration confirmation email. But a lot of people do not enjoy going and phishing through their email, so that's why we built a way for you to join your team and have your secret name written right inside the Discord, but only partially available to other people in the server. Only the people who are in your team unless people ask you and they you tell them they're not gonna know what it is. And that kind of goes hand in hand. Speaker A [00:06:31]: So bingo, the crossover between bingo and the secret identities is this, single card game that I created earlier this year called confide confidental cards. Confidential cards. Right? And they're like another way to get a bingo if you can fill out a full confidential card. That counts as a bingo pattern now. And what you're trying to fill out there is the is to play test a game from somebody from each team and get their secret identity when you play that game with them. So you'll be asking people what team are you on and what is your secret identity if you wanna be filling that card out. You also can fill that one out by hand or, there's a fillable PDF. It's just like a huge page, right, that just has 4 kind of fillable sections on it. Speaker A [00:07:22]: And I think and then shout out a palooza is not for earning entries in the giveaway drawing and that and shout out a palooza also, I've created that to be fun also for the mentors to do because they always get free badges anyways. And what we give away in the drawing is largely free badges. So, I want to be able to give something to the mentors or have something for them to play for. So shout out a palooza, you play for a snail mail prize, secret prize, mailed to you, and it's it's small and flat enough that I can mail it anywhere in the world with an international forever stamp. So everybody can play no matter where you live and get a flat pack sort of something. And the way you play Shoutoutpalooza, also you have to be on your team, and the winning team is the team that has the highest average of shout outs per person on their team. So the more people join your team and do not participate in Shadow of Looza, the worse chance you'll have of winning that contest. Speaker D [00:08:28]: Cool. Thank you. Speaker A [00:08:29]: Yeah. Thanks for asking. That's a good question. I know that's a thing that a lot of people who attend Protegepiel are much more focused on getting all of their materials ready to present and play test, and they end up not having time to read the rules of the games that I made for y'all. And it's completely fine to not participate, they're there for people who think they're fun, and they're all built in a way to encourage people to remember the humans that they play tested games with. The core of basically all of them is that's what they're all there for. Yeah. Any other questions? Speaker C [00:09:14]: I was wondering if you could chat about the preplanning, looking for a gg. Just to Speaker A [00:09:21]: make sure Speaker C [00:09:21]: I'm not Speaker A [00:09:21]: Yeah. Yeah. Looking for a game where you can post instead of I want players ASAP, I want players sometime within the next 3 hours. Speaker C [00:09:29]: Exactly. Speaker A [00:09:31]: Yes. Yeah. And that's gonna be a big time test for August 2023. This will be the first time we're running the system. But we built this system based on feedback from people who have longer games that it feels bad to them to have to sit and looking for it it feels like they're kind of the outcast in looking for a game because everybody's always really excited about the games that take 30 minutes and less excited about the games that take 90 minutes. I think a lot of the reason for that is that people are here to see each other, and the shorter game they play, the more chance they're going to be able to see a lot of different people. And that doesn't mean that there aren't people here that don't like to play longer games. I think it's just the timing needs to be right and sometimes the timing is really off when somebody asks for a 90 minute gg. Speaker A [00:10:20]
