Playtest Zone
Why playtest games?
As a designer...
Getting feedback on your game as you iterate on the design is very important, moreso when it’s from complete strangers at a convention like Tabletop Scotland. Players will notice things about your game that you and your regular gaming group may never notice.
As a player...
Testing out games before they are published gives you the opportunity to understand more about what goes into making a game, plus it is a lot of fun!
To join in, head to the playtest zone and sign up for any of the slots with spaces!
Playtest Schedule
| Game Name | Start | Finish | # Players | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dead End | 11:00 | 14:00 | 2 | Dead End is a fast-paced, cooperative zombie horde shooter for 2-4 players (limited to 2 for the demo) that blends tactical positioning, dice-driven combat with a risk/ reward mechanic, and escalating pressure into a cinematic action-horror experience. Players control unique Survivors, each with unique starting and upgrade abilities, fighting through ever-growing undead hordes. Combat is dice-heavy and dynamic. Enemies don’t always wait their turn, but reactive fire, interrupts, and sudden spawns keep the tension high even when it’s not your activation. As the fight intensifies, Survivors unlock powerful abilities, customise weapons, and improvise with scavenged equipment. Stress, wounds, and panic push players to the edge, forcing hard choices between control and chaos. In the demo mission, two players will rescue three lost civilians and escort them safely to the extraction point before the horde overwhelms them. The game features a large play area, Survivor dashboards, custom standees and lots of colourful dice and item cards. This isn’t a slow, grim survival crawl. Dead End is about pace and teamwork, and improvising your way out of a bad situation. The apocalypse is loud, messy and fun. |
| Onex | 11:00 | 14:00 | 2-5 | ONEX is a quick pattern-matching card game with a light sci-fi theme. On your turn you flip cards from the deck, usually three at a time, revealing different Earth animals and symbols. Players race to spot matching patterns that form valid combinations. If you call it correctly, you claim a crystal card. The first player to collect two crystals wins. In the story behind the game, a distant planet called Onex has suffered a catastrophe, and its sentient life now exists as drifting particles of dust. Somehow, information about Earth’s animals can be used to help restore their world. Whether you are guiding these unseen intelligences or helping them from the outside is left open, but every combination you find brings Onex closer to recovery. Quick to learn and play, ONEX is about observation, pattern recognition, and timing under pressure. |
| Deep Trouble | 11:00 | 17:00 | 2-4 (3-4 preferred) | Deep Trouble is a fast push-your-luck risk taking mining adventure for 2 to 4 players. Compete with other players to delve as deeply as possible and plunder the most valuable diamonds. But reach too far and you might end up with nothing! |
| Match 5! | 11:00 | 12:30 | 3-7 | A quick and easy to learn card and dice games which is fun for all ages. Play cards to build a target number (or range), then roll the dice. If you hit the target, you gain points! Flip. Roll. Win. |
| Artifacts of Linmarsh | 11:00 | 14:00 | 4-6 | Artifacts of Linmarch is a capture-the-flag style board game for 4–6 players. Lead your faction in a sprint across the continent of Erde, claim the Artifact of Linmarch, and race home before your rivals can stop you. Featuring asymmetric factions and plenty of dirty tricks, players must outmaneuver and sabotage one another in the race for the Artifact. But beware — Orcs are roaming the land and would like nothing more than to steal the Artifact for themselves. |
| Mercenary | 11:00 | 14:00 | 2–6 | Fight for a profit and waste your rivals as you offer your gun for hire to eight murderous factions. Assault, infiltrate and compromise targets across four regions and dozens of contracts. Impress your employers and you can retire rich and comfortable under their protection… or hunt down your colleagues in cold blood. Some mercenaries will rely on brute force and heavy weaponry, while others use their trickery or technical expertise to outpace and outmanoeuvre their opponents. Choose your gear, weapons and associates as you rise through the ranks – but watch your back. You’re not the only killer making a living. |
| Farm Tycoon | 13:00 | 14:30 | 1-2 | Farm Tycoon is a 1–2 player farming board game where players grow crops, produce milk, flour, and yogurt, and sell goods to a local farm shop. The game features individual player boards and pawns, offering a tactile and strategic tabletop experience. The game using 20-sided dice, card-drawing, and tokens to blend strategy and chance. Relaxing yet challenging, it’s designed for small groups or solo play and offers a fresh take on resource management, farm development, and interacting with the other farmers. |
| The Alterra TCG | 14:15 | 17:15 | 2 | The Alterra Trading Card Game. Take control of your own adventure and race to achieve your party’s objective before your adversaries achieve theirs; initiate your Characters, play your Adventure Cards, and defeat your opponent. The Alterra TCG is a deck-building strategy game where every decision shapes your journey. Construct your party, customize your deck, and adapt your tactics as you explore adventures, overcome challenges, and outmaneuver your opponents on the path to victory. |
| Explorers of the Lost Isle | 14:15 | 20:15 | 4 | Explorers of the Lost Isle is an asymmetric tile flipping exploration game set on an island terrorised by an evil dinosaur spirit. 3 players will be tasked with stopping the evil dinosaur by throwing its buried bones in a volcano! 1 player will play as the evil dinosaur spirit, whose goal is to remake their physical form by stealing the souls of the explorers! |
| Happy Valley | 14:15 | 17:15 | 3-5 | Compete to build the most successful biome, strategically benefitting from neighbouring creatures and plants, while your actions often help your opponents as well. Happy Valley is a tableau building game where players add cards to their Valley, with each type of card scoring differently at the end of the game, and many of them giving points based on other player’s cards. Maximize your own points and disguise your intentions from the opponents, while you’re trying to take advantage of their cards! |
| SpyJinks | 14:15 | 17:15 | 2-4 (4 preferred) | A 2 – 4 player board game of hijinks and spy craft. Players will take on the roles of Secret Agents sent on a mission to recover The MacGuffin from the Vault. To do so they may need to work together to move down the board and find the Vault Key card. However the escape plan is only for one, so everyone will need to use their cunning and vast array of gadgets to outsmart their rivals and get back to the exit first with The MacGuffin in their possession. |
| Puzzle Tracks | 15:00 | 16:30 | 1 | A single player tile-laying puzzle game. Use the transparent train track tiles to connect up the railways. Rely on your spatial reasoning and logic, and maybe a bit of trial and error. Good for players who enjoy challenging their own brain to a fight. |
| Game Name | Start | Finish | # Players | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Deep Trouble | 11:00 | 14:30 | 2 – 4 (3-4 preferred) | Deep Trouble is a fast push-your-luck risk taking mining adventure for 2 to 4 players. Compete with other players to delve as deeply as possible and plunder the most valuable diamonds. But reach too far and you might end up with nothing! |
| CiNDER | 11:00 | 14:00 | 1 – 4 | Outwit the group. Outlast the dark. A pocket-sized survival card game with two modes, a fast paced competitive mode where you try to outlast your opponents, and an ‘escape the labyrinth’ mode where you work together with your friends – or alone – to survive. |
| MAJORITY RULES | 11:00 | 14:00 | 2 – 8 | Fast paced easy game utilizing dice to capture a Majority of the Bank Gems while also trying to win the Best 3 card poker hand (Brag/Monty). Components include Money $ chips, Insurance Chips and Mystery Cards. Endless possibilities and variations. |
| Pipe Down | 11:00 | 12:30 | 2 – 4 | Pipe Down is a fast-flowing, tile-laying game made for 2-4 players. Each player must attempt to create a direct flow of water from the starting piece to their city five levels away. Through clever placement and devious thinking, players can sabotage their opponents’ routes and be the first to bring the water home! |
| SpyJinks | 11:00 | 12:30 | 2 – 4 (4 preferred) | A 2 – 4 player board game of hijinks and spy craft. Players will take on the roles of Secret Agents sent on a mission to recover The MacGuffin from the Vault. To do so they may need to work together to move down the board and find the Vault Key card. However the escape plan is only for one, so everyone will need to use their cunning and vast array of gadgets to outsmart their rivals and get back to the exit first with The MacGuffin in their possession. |
| Parhelia | 13:00 | 14:30 | 3 – 5 | Humanity’s first generation ship has reached a new world, and the corporations that built it are now rivals on the same fragile frontier. Where Pivot was corporate warfare, Parhelia is forced cooperation: two shuttles are the colony’s only lifeline between orbit and surface, and everyone has to share them. The same companies must build shared infrastructure to survive, then compete over the dividends it throws off. Place your executives on a colony’s core to take a stake, settle colonists into its buildings, and every stakeholder gets paid — including your rivals. Time a merger right for a big payout. But your final score is your weakest colour, so hoarding one resource while neglecting another is exactly how you lose. Balance is everything. |
| The Alterra TCG | 14:00 | 17:00 | 2 | The Alterra Trading Card Game. Take control of your own adventure and race to achieve your party’s objective before your adversaries achieve theirs; initiate your Characters, play your Adventure Cards, and defeat your opponent. The Alterra TCG is a deck-building strategy game where every decision shapes your journey. Construct your party, customize your deck, and adapt your tactics as you explore adventures, overcome challenges, and outmaneuver your opponents on the path to victory. |
| Panopticon | 15:00 | 16:30 | 3 – 5 | By 2277 the Panopticon watches everything — a surveillance state run by the Directorate and its AI, holding order across a solar system of habitats and colonies. You are an Envoy, working in secret for the nascent AIs that want to steer what humanity becomes. You move through the vertical megastructures of a great orbital station, placing influence where it counts and prising it away where it doesn’t, exposing rival agents in the shadows, and flipping whole sectors to the faction you favour. The catch: you secretly back two of the five factions, and your score is your committed influence in them multiplied by how well they do. You want them to win — without anyone working out they’re yours. |