More Giant Stone Head!

Giant Stone Head

So despite actually making some new hexes – I never got round to cutting them out – so this version is the same as the version that went to Stabcon. 

This play test was pretty important since it was with “the breaker of games” who managed to break things really rather a lot when the last played.  And he gave it a good try – by making sure he went last in one turn and first in another – but as he was unable to force the end of the game he found himself over extended and not holding onto sufficient space for the last turn. 

One player messed up his penultimate turn – played his cards wrongly – but in a way that’s a good thing.  The existence of bad play means there is good play - which means the decisions you make matter.   Certainly the 3 card limit in a combat has made combat both more frequent and more common – which is good.

This build is feeling very stable - the game elements are now all in place – but what remains to be decided is what the correct proportions are

Now the breaker of games tried to avoid violence - the rewards were not sufficient he felt for random violence - just very focused violence at the right time.  At the moment you get most of your VP’s from actually building stone heads – which in turn comes mainly from holding territory that gives you resources and has space to build.  But is that proportion currently right – at the moment it feels a little bit like building a stone head gives you a smidge to much and violence gives you a smidge to little.  Building is 2VP’s a head, violence  1VP per a head – and it has to be that way round to reward the act of building.  But maybe values of 1.8 and 1.2 would be better?  Of course there is no way of getting that – but I could make building 2VP’s and violence 1.5vp’s – except I don’t want half points so I’d have to make it 4vp’s and 3vp’s which closes the gap but have things then swung to far the other way?  Not sure I have an answer to this but my instinct is to keep the numbers low.

One small change – the 4 empty spaces hex is just not being used until the last turn of the game – so it’s a bit of a pointless hex.  However the 3 empty spaces and a heart is being used – that heart makes it that little bit more attractive – so I think I’ll replace that one.

One of my readers (hello John!) said if there are ten steps of game design I’m on 9 and not moving forward.  Actually I think I’ve been on 6 and now I’m moving to 7 – all game elements are in place it’s now it's about proportion…….  And honestly I’ve no idea how to go about doing this stage – how do you work out the fine tuning – how do you decide if you want one more attack boost then defence boost?  How do you work out if the game would be better or worse with one more tree then empty space?  Trial and error have got me this far - and I'm not sure of the way forwards.