Karen Ponzio Photo
Keith Paul and Adam Parisi.
The tables at Elm City Games on Chapel Street were bustling at Fantasticon on, full of people trying out new board games.
The board for The Dragon and the Unicorn, a new Othello-like two-player game I was testing, was a network of circles and lines, with round cardboard chips on the board. I was the unicorn. Keith Paul, playing against me, was the dragon. I was halfway through the game and I was winning, but I still had to claim more territory. Paul was trying to do the same. Keith Paul put a tree down. I needed fire. I reached into a bag where there were round cardboard chips and pulled one out. Paul was taking his turn.
I kept plotting. Could I claim three corners of the parcel of land I already controlled? Could I block Paul from claiming land, too?
Fantasticon, a three-day tabletop game playtesting convention, took place at Elm City Games (at 760 Chapel) Friday to Sunday under the guidance of Fantastic and Loter, who invited game designers, publishers, and players to do just that.
Matt Fantastic.
“Everyone likes having fun, and everyone likes games, it’s just a matter of finding the game for you. It doesn’t have to be Dungeons & Dragons or even Monopoly, but there is something for everybody,” said Matt Fantastic, who co-owns Elm City Games with Trish Loter.
Tabletop games have come a long way from classics like Monopoly and Sorry! European strategy games like Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride have found a lot of fans in the United States and have become more mainstream. Gaming conventions like GenCon in Indianapolis, Ind., and Origins in Columbis, Ohio, attract tens of thousands of participants from all over the country. The games’ rise in popularity has inspired more people to develop new tabletop games, but as Fantastic put it, “ideas are a dime a dozen until you put pieces onto the table and have people start moving them around.”
Elm City Games is already dedicated to playing and testing games. Its shelves are stocked with board and card games that people can come in and play during business hours. It hosts regular gaming events focused on specific games, like Magic: The Gathering or Pokémon.
For Fantasticon, the space played home to a gathering of designers, publishers, and players eager to test some of the latest tabletop games being developed. The conference was sponsored not only by ECG, but also by Prettiest Princess Games, Fantastic’s design and publishing company, and the New Haven Game Makers Guild, a local game designers group run by Fantastic, Alex Cutler Freese, and Alex Wilkinson that is also affiliated with other game makers guilds in Boston and Philadelphia.
Game designers try out their new games and pitch them to game publishers at larger gaming conventions, Fantastic said. But there, designers may only get to talk to a game company representative for less than a minute, and may not get to try any games themselves because they are running their own tables and promoting their own games.
At Fantasticon, Fantastic wanted everyone to have sufficient time to not only play each other’s games, but talk to each other about them and simply hang out — even just have a beer and chat, or grab a meal at a restaurant nearby. The focus was on fostering community.
“It’s like if you play in a band and they play a show with another really good band. You get inspired, and it makes everyone so much better,” Fantastic said.
Fantastic explained that there are three stages of game testing. After an initial version of a game is made, in the first stage, designers and their friends “chip away at the sculpture” of it, seeing what does and doesn’t work. In the second phase, designers get “anyone and everyone” to play. In this phase, the game might be “functional but maybe not fun,” and designers change it until they feel good about it. In the final stage — or “blind” playtesting — designers have developed the game enough to have others read the rule book and teach it to themselves with less input from the designers.
Levandowski (left), Isaac Shalev, Amato, and O’Neill (l-r).
On Saturday afternoon, the tables in Elm City Games were occupied as players and designers convened. At one table sat designers Chris O’Neill, 43, and Anthony Amato, 37, both from Philadelphia, along with Doug Levandowski, 35, from New Jersey, who all knew Fantastic but had never been to Elm City Games.
“One of the jokes is that everyone knows Matt,” O’Neill said. He’s also a game publisher. Amato and Levandowski seconded O’Neill’s statement. They had brought their own games with them, but were mostly looking forward to playing other people’s games and hanging out. They also reiterated Fantastic’s comments about what larger gaming conventions can be like for designers.
“Those feel more like work,” said Levandowski. “This is not working-working,” said Amato with a laugh.
Bollinger.
Jill Bollinger, 47, of New Hampshire and co-owner and co-designer of Wild East Game Company with her husband Brian, was there testing an expansion pack of an existing game, Pie Rats of the Carob Bean Farm, which involves a rat captain “collecting a crew to loot the farmer’s wife’s pies on the windowsill. Whoever gets the most pies wins,” she said with a wide smile.
The Bollingers were also testing two new games, Pitman and Slap Down — which, like Pie Rats, involved cards and dice. Bollinger mentioned, as many others did, having a lifelong interest and love of playing card and board games with her family. But this was her first time in New Haven, having met Fantastic at an out-of-town convention.
Paul, Holyfield, and Parisi.
Keith Paul, 43, of Torrington and Travis Holyfield, 42, of Hamden attended Fantasticon at the suggestion of friend Adam Parisi, 37, of North Branford, who had been to Elm City Games before and is a friend of Matt’s. It was both Parisi’s and Paul’s first time playtesting, but Holyfield had previously playtested at other conventions. They (like many who attended Fantasticon) had early and ongoing experiences playing Dungeons & Dragons. Paul played on and off his whole life. Holyfield plays every week. They discussed two new games they had played that day with much enthusiasm.
“I want to buy that Action Figures one right now,” Parisi said. (ECG does have games for sale, but the games being played today were all still in the testing stage).
I played The Dragon and the Unicorn with Paul after he and Parisi finished their last round. Designed by math teacher Gordon LeVasseur, 44, of Bethany, it was built upon a game that LeVasseur had originally developed as a way to assist students in his class who had asked him if there was a dominant strategy in the classic game of Rock, Paper, Scissors.
In its current incarnation, the two-player Dragon and the Unicorn involves randomly selecting round cardboard pieces out of a bag that are either water, fire, or a tree. Water beats fire. Fire beats tree. Tree beats water. Placing the pieces on a grid allows you to claim a piece of land as your own as you surround it (it is a two player game, and you are either the unicorn or the dragon). As you claim land, you also try to block your opponent from claiming land.
LeVasseur and Parisi guided our game when needed, but also allowed us to learn and play independently as the game progressed, joking and egging us on. I told Levasseur I was fine with losing. He laughed. “Me too,” he said. “In fact I’ve made a lifestyle of it.”
As it happens I did win my game against Paul, who then filled out a questionnaire about the game that each participant was asked to complete in order to give feedback to the designer, though all the participants in Fantasticon seemed to be continually discussing the game they were playing — with just as much laughter and smiling throughout the afternoon as there were looks of concentration and commitment.
Fantastic emphasized the inclusive nature of not only Fantasticon, but Elm City Games overall.
“We’re tattooed punk rock kids,” Fantastic said of himself and Loter. “We consider ourselves inclusive and socially progressive, and we feel this place should reflect that.” He also is passionate about the responsibility to “not silently seethe. We want kids and all people that feel marginalized to have a space where they can be who they want, where they will feel safe. The super toxic part of gaming culture is not allowed here.”
The idea of learning a new game, becoming proficient at it, and possibly winning it, is ingrained in all of us, no matter our background or status in the world. Even when we lose, we do so with the knowledge that we can have another chance at winning, and being part of a community that simply wants to play. We all need a break from what we do every day to be ourselves and have fun. At Elm City Games all are welcomed to find a new way to do so.
Matt and Trish are doing great things here. It sounds like Elm City Games is doing great at the Grove. Excited to see it grow and become even more infused in New Haven culture. Good read.