Our friday playtest group has grown to over 5 people, so Brett and I thought it was a good time to name the group and get properly organized. We set up a Yahoo group under the name Usonian Games, applying Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian ideas of modest designs for everyday people to our game designs. Our inagural meeting was at the Red Gym on campus. We were joined by Todd, Cam and Jayson from the Madison Board Gamers, Jerry and friends, and John and JonMichael, who just had their game Cineplexity picked up by Out of the Box Publishing.

We tested out Cineplexity first, then moved to two groups, one working on Jerry's word game, and the other playtesting some of my designs, Ultra-Violets and Schism. It was a blind-playtest for UV, and it showed some warts in the rules that I need to get fixed before sending it off, but the streamlining has helped and it could use a little more to make everything connect. Schism didn't fare so well, bogging down and chaning rules a few times through the testing, but I think I have some ideas of where to go next, might be a complete overhaul of the system. Todd pulled out his Good/Evil card game for a round and it was good, I look forward to playing a whole game. We then looked at John and JonMichael's newest game Push, rolling dice and having fun, and wrapped up with some two-player games from Jayson, Brett and myself. A very successful evening with lots of game types hitting the table, I hope we make it a monthly tradition.