The first gathering of “Roomiz” designers at Avagames
The first gathering of Board game designers was held by Roomiz and supported by Avagames. The event consisted of three main sections: a workshop, a panel talk and a playtest session.
1. The first part of the program is a workshop titled “Let’s Get Your Ideas!” By Alireza Lolagar, Chief Marketing Officer for the Hoopa Publishing. The Hoopa publishing, known for its popular titles like Stoogite, Pyeapye, Patak, Capochin, Daliz, etc., is one of the pioneers in the field of publishing board games in Iran. Lolagar began his talk with a brief summary of the history and activities of the past few years. According to him, the publication has been working to produce distinct products to help grow the culture of the hobby, with challenges such as the production of new parts, various experiences in the field of illustration and graphics, and the diversification of products. In the sequel, and after introducing a number of new and exciting Hoopa projects, the main part of the workshop was on how to present the project and, in principle, correct and incorrect views on the design of the game.
2. After the completion of the workshop, and after the reception of the audience, the second part of the event, which was the roundtable discussion of the independent publishers of recent years, began. The conversation was attended by Mr. Ashkan Javaheri, director of Dorehami games, as well as Mr. Armin Molavi, director of Majimba’s games and Mr. Vahid Firoozhe, art director of the Majimba, with the theme “Disasters of being an independent board game publisher”. The moderator of the program, Mr. Amir Aien, initially sent comments from each of these publishers about their products and the rest of the publishers’ products! Following on the round table, publishers highlighted the important question with regard to the challenges posed by the independent production and distribution of board games: “Are we essentially publishing our game as a publisher-designer?”. After asking questions and answers from participants, this section was completed and after lunch and a brief break, we went to the third part of the program.
3. The third part of the gathering was the Playtest session, in which 12 boad games were played in two sessions by participants, during which helpful feedback to the designers was given through the feedback forms. Closer contact with the audience, explaining the rules for players who have no idea of the game, and seeing how the players interact with the game, is one of the benefits of the playtest.