EVENT: NW Playtesters Game Testing Day

On Saturday April 7th The Sharp Project is hosting North West Playtesters – a day of game development, testing and feedback for the Manchester indie games community.

The day will start with a showcase of unpublished games by developers and designers from across the Manchester indie dev scene. These are games that are still under development — actively going through change. All attendees are welcome to come and play these games and give constructive criticism to the developers.

After lunch there will be a panel discussion with some prominent members of the industry in the North West including: Daley Johnson (Community Manager at Rare), Anna Whitehead (Director of Ingenium Games), Luke Thompson (Co-Founder of SigTrap Games) and another Dan Birchinall (Inspyro VR).

The discussion will be about handling feedback from your audience and from your peers, touching upon the difference between constructive and destructive criticism and, on the darker side, how sites like twitter make it easier to see toxic feedback. The panel will be hosted by Simon Smith, ex-Sony game designer with titles under his belt such as Colin McRae Rally and Reservoir Dogs, now the founder of his own studio: Thumbfood.

After the panel discussion, playtesting will resume until 5pm.

The day is sponsored by Futureworks  who provide world-class education and training in Sound, Music, Film & TV, Games, Animation and Visual Effects

Register your place via the Eventbrite.

North West Playtesters Background

North West Playtesters was started by Luke Perkin in 2014 because he was developing a game but found it hard to find people to try it out and give feedback. Knowing there must be others like himself out there he set up the meetup in central Manchester. The first event, on a Wednesday evening, had three attendees. Four years later and the group is going strong, with over 600 members.

The group that welcomes anyone to showcase their game and playtest each other’s games. It’s welcome to all type of games from board and card games, video games, mobile games or any fun and entertaining game! Even if you are not creating a game come down to discover new things and give valuable feedback to designers.

North West Playtesters is run by Luke and award-winning game designer & co-director of Ingenium Games Anna Whitehead. The event on April 7th at The Sharp Project is their largest to date.

They also still meet regularly at MadLab – please click here for details.

Luke Perkin – Organiser.

Luke has a varied and creative background, working in film, music, creating educational software and now virtual reality games. Always on the lookout for the next medium to create compelling experiences. Locogame was founded in 2017 by Luke and has signed with All4Games (a publishing arm of Channel 4) to publish a mobile puzzle game and also has a debut hobby game in development.

Anna Whitehead – Co-organiser.

Anna is an award-winning game designer. Having worked on games for Hasbro, she is now co-director of Ingenium Games – a game design and publishing business. Ingenium has secured international distribution, awards, and a Good Toy Guide ‘Recommendation’ for their game WordStaker, and they are now pitching their next batch of games to publishers and distributors around the world.

Anna speaks and lectures on game design at a number of Universities and colleges around the North West, including UCLAN/Futureworks, Leeds Beckett, Salford City College, and Salford University.

Social media for the day:

Austella – @AustellaVR | Bee VR – @BeeVR_mcr | Ingenium Games – @IngeniumGames | Inspyro – @InspyroVR |  Locogame – @locogameluke | Silo Black Games – @SiloBlackGames | Playground Squad – @PlaygroundSquad | Prospect Games – @ProspectGames | Rare – @RareLtd | Sigtrap – @SIGTRAPgames | 

Some of the games you’ll be able to play at NW Playtesters on April 7th:

On the day you will be able to:

• Play and give feedback on the newest games being developed.
• Network with fellow game developers and enthusiasts.
• Listen a Discussion Panel with prominent members of the industry, the topic will be “Engaging with feedback from players and peers”.
• Experience Virtual Reality and how it’s being used in the gaming industry.
• FanBoy3 will be here, selling a collection of tabletop games.

If you are coming as a developer/designer and require your own table, do let us know. Power can be provided but you will need to bring your own audio/visual equipment. We can also provide you with feedback forms to give to your testers.

To register your place, please click here.

Agenda: 

About North West Playtesters

North West Playtesters is a group that welcomes anyone to showcase their game and playtest each other’s games. It’s welcome to all type of games from board and card games, video games, mobile games or any fun and entertaining game! Even if you are not creating a game come down to discover new things and give valuable feedback to designers.