Journal of Play 2: Playtesting Folk Game

Initially, I had an idea of trying to adapt an improv game I played when I worked as a summer camp counselor into a zoom game. The game is known as “Surprise Guest” or as we called it when we were younger, “House Party.” Basically, one of the actors would play the role of “Party Host” and leave the room. Meanwhile, the other actors would play roles suggested by the audience. Once all the roles were given, the host would return and the “guests” would enter onto the stage and give an impression of their role. The host would then try to guess who their guests are and the game ends once all of the guests have been identified. 

With only this in mind, I suggested this game to the first playtest to possibly adapt into a folk game. My playtest group consisted of Athena, Katherine, and professor Patrick Lemiuex. As I was explaining the rules of the original game, the professor challenged me to conceive of a way to not only adapt the game to Zoom, but to reinvent the themes and rules to make the game unique to Zoom. What he suggested was that instead of a house party, the setting could be a convention panel or a podcast, something specific to a video conference. With this in mind, we changed some of the original rules, so that instead of just identifying a guest, the host needed to be able to know the subject of the conference panel. This addition made the game very hilarious as we pretended to be construction workers, plumbers, and firemen at a Water Safety Conference. Another idea floated around that I found interesting was letting the chat decide what occupations the panelists take on; however, since there were only four people playing, this idea had to be shelved.

With this positive playtest in mind, I drafted a set of rules based on the previous playtest, and headed into a second playtest with the same group (sans professor). Again, since there was no chat, we decided to assign roles ourselves. We decided to pretend to be at a Furry Convention as a commissions artist and a fursuit maker. Overall, I think the game went well; however, I would be remiss if I didn’t have my own concern, especially given my own biases in playtesting my own game. One aspect of the game I’ll need to be able to address is directing players to interact with each other in a meaningful way, without restricting their creative freedom.