I suspect I need witty titles

So another play test with the Monday night gamers – people who last played 3 or so version a go.  And yes I’m definitely pushing for play tests much more at the moment – simply because I set a deadline to start production work at the start of January in order to have it for Bristol comic con so I need to have a version I could produce sharpish.  In fact that might well be the last play test of the 2012.....

They were all very impressed by the little stone heads – there so cute!  What I’m going to do for the full production version is now an issue…….  Explaining the game seemed really hard for some reason.

Good positive feedback – they seemed to enjoy the game – and seemed to think it had improved over last time.    

So the new dual use cards are excellent – people now have a range of options available while still just being able to throw cards down for violence if they feel the need.  The balance is still with the attacker but the defender manage to throw down some large reversals due to the wider range of defensive cards.   The chances of a “bad bad day” being in the hands of somebody able to play it are much higher now – which makes attacking a heart that little bit more dangerous.  And the “totally taboo” cancelation card is certainly a good addition….. 

The new rongaronga seemed popular – the ones giving you points for attacking the player to your left or to your right were good.  The new “shaman says what?” cards which give points for taking certain combinations of territory did not seem to be quite right.  Of the three combinations the coastal one was done 3 times – the middle one was done 1 and the straight line one was never done (although I did try)…….

The problems seem to fit into a set of similar problems from previous games……

-          Those behind – stay behind

-          Turn Order – when is good to go?

-          Last turn does not matter that much.

I think I see a solution for all three of those issues – but I’m trying to avoid changing too much too quickly – specifically I don’t want to change the cards until I’ve seen them in use a little more.  So while I think we need more movement cards and more steal a vp from the leader cards I need to see that a little more first.

What does not seem to be a problem….

-          Sitting on your arse.  I ran a defensive game – large numbers of men on the first turn – grabbed a lot of space and built up slowly and won.  But only just – and only after making a grand grab for the middle which could have gone very wrong. 

So plans for the next version…..

1)      Remove the resource value for holding the quarry.  Still have it break ties but no value.

2)      Change the end of game points to being for Hexes, and for resources.  Stoneheads post game become worthless – which is thematically better anyway.

3)      Increase the difference between the top and bottom ranks for the end of game points

4)      Change turn order so that lowest VPS choose when they want to go

The last is the only one that worries me – the other 3 seem sensible – it’s an old idea I have used before – but it slows things down.  It’s another choice point but it feels like a bit of a road bump rather than a significant choice.  However with the new game when you go seems important and yet not obvious (where as it was obvious before) – and first place is getting the first choice of stone heads and extra VPS……..

In terms of production I’ve asked my friend with the most contact into the games industry to see if he can find me….

a)      Contact details for a games bit wholesaler willing to handle a small order – I’ll need about 95 pieces per a box (ignoring worshiped and unworshiped stone heads for which I have an idea) so about 10,000 in total for a 100 copies which is a tiny order.

b)      See if he can find me a printer who can do print runs of a 100 decks of cards.

Even if that works - that still leaves……

Hexes, stone heads,  unworshiped stone heads, boxes, rules, and art to source…….

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm just had an idea.  What if each player had their own deck of cards?  Would be less random  each player would have the same mix of cards to use – just in a different order.  But at first glance looks much more expensive to make – but I know that in printing a 1,000 copies is the place where the price per a unit drops massively (5 player – 5 decks a box means 200 copies of the game which is more than I was thinking of doing.  Except that the different backs might well mean it counts as different decks so the price would go up.

Last night as one of the play testers played around with stone heads – I was struck how you could have a game of stone heads that just involved covering resources with stone heads until the island fall apart without all the violence.  And a good game it would be to.  But through all the version of the game – when I’ve felt like every idea was under considering – I’ve stuck with the violence because the original dream had involved this sort of violence based conflict around the stone heads. So I've let certain preconceptions stay with me throughout the design process without realising they were there.  Nothing wrong with fixed notions - but it would be better to acknowledge them I think....