Complete Draft

Finished the first complete copy of the rules, including this setup diagram, Appendix B: Secret Goals, and Appendix C: The Annotated Story of Glog & Gree.

Board Art!

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Art by Bob Garvin

Notes from Sixty-third Playtest

Photo of Brandon taking a Photo of the game

Notes
Didn't try any new rules, just trying out the goals with two players, and catching up a playtester who hasn't played in a while.

Goals
Crack Shot and Specialist goals are easier with  fewer players. Makes sense, it's much easier to collect more of the same stuff when the tiles are distributed between 2 players instead of 4 or 5. Haven't decided if this requires a change to any goals or not.

Goal Cards Layout

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Notes from Sixty-second Playtest

(actually, we played with five)

Rules Tried

A five player game with one player who hadn't played in a while, so here are rules that haven't been tried with 5.

No area majority

Wounded animals move 1, diagonal ok.

Torch use must be declared, in which case you do not roll to escape. It pushes the animal 1 space (diagonal ok).

No bare handed hunting, you may not explore.


Notes

Master Scout should be simplified and pointed down to one point per tile.

The torch is better this way.

There should have a way to discard equipment in village.

The 4 player board setup worked well with 5. As with all my initial setups, no that there's no area majority as a shared goal they can all be tighter, with the obstacles closer to the village.

Notes from Playtests Fifty-nine to Sixty-one

Playtest 59, Click to Enlarge

Playtest Notes
Always a great opportunity to play with people who haven't played in a while. Here are my observations:


Torch Use
The torch is a little confusing because it is a triggered by a certain event, rather than used actively like other weapons. Maybe there's a way to make a torch more like a regular weapon, so you just use it, rather than watch for the condition when it kicks in.
Example:
When a Gatherer with a torch encounters a deadly animal he may use it to drive off the animal. The torch is then discarded. Otherwise he rolls to escape (on a 10+) as usual.

Torch Moves Animals
If the Torch forces the animal to move, it should move in the same manner as an animal wounded by a hunter - 1 space, diagonal allowed.

Master Scout Goal
Should add that you are not allowed to take notes.

Playtest 60, Click to Enlarge

Get rid of bare handed!
Bare handed hunting makes it easy for a player to start out by spending all his money on gatherer equipment, and then commit suicide with his hunter to re-equip and get a second goal. Hunting should not be allowed without a weapon. You can still buy a spear for 1 and try to kill yourself, but it cost points and at least you tried.

Paranoid Goal
The Paranoid goal appears to be over pointed. It's tricky, but spacing out your claimed territory can be a powerful strategy, preventing others from poaching any tiles you are unable to claim immediately.

No Spaces Touching Village Goal
May be under pointed, makes movement difficult for the whole game.

To Try
I've been saying for a long time that this game should have player boards. It would aid in teaching the game, and standardize where in front of you your plants & animals go (it's important for other players to be able to tell how many of each you have collected).

At some point I had the idea that the secret goal cards, which form the center-piece of the player's area, should have player board information on the back. I'm already using the to store the player's scored disks, it's the natural next step.

Notes from Fifty-eight Playtest

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Today's Story
Let me tell you about this damn wolf. I was making a path out of the village (yellow player in the photo). The wolf showed up right at a pinch point between a mountain and the side of the board. I kept going after it with an atlatl and spear, and died over and over again. Each time I'd die I'd get another goal, "Brave", "Largest Territory", "Pathfinder", each adding more incentive to kill that wolf. But also losing 2 points as I re-equipped. I finally killed it, but not until the other players had pulled well ahead. Next time I'll be less stupid and try a bow and arrow instead, or drive it away with a sling.

Oh, and as a side effect of my stubbornness, the player to my left had the "Copy Cat" goal, and was able to find one of my 7 goals that let him tie for the win!


Rules Tried

Village: 1-2-2-3-4

This works, and should help me use the same score track for 2 and 3 players as for 4 and 5. The village needs to have lower values, because the number of tiles remains constant at 24, even if there are fewer players.

Wounded Animals Flee 1 Space (diagonal OK)

Think this works. Really need to go bow hunting to try it out more. I had the largest territory bonus, so I used the atlatl instead this time, going for one shot kills.

Three Player Board Setup

The village & mountain setup shown here works well. I like it in this corner too, closer to the village track.

Goals Audit

We went through all the goals currently in circulation and made notes on each.

Copycat: Change to copy one goal from a player to your left or right.

Explorer: Change to 4 points.

Brave: Change to 6 points for killing 3 deadly animals.

Master Scout: Works as is.

Most Types of Disks Sold: Needs more testing

Fewest Types of Disks Sold: Change to 6 points.

Basher & Fletcher: kill both, too arbitrary, not in line with other activity happening in the game.

Homebody: Change to 3 points, this is a benefit by itself.

Crack Shot: Simplify to 5 for either killing 2 rabbits or 2 squirrels.

Wolf Master: New goal! Kill 2 wolves, 6 points.

Frightened: Getting rid of this goal. Don't want to encourage people to lose.

Productive: Reduce to 3 points, have to be successful to attempt this.

No Claimed spaces Next to Village: Haven't tested.

Omnivore: Increase to 5 points, I like this one, but it's tricky to pull off so needs a bit more incentive.

Hoarder: Name is inaccurate - maybe monopoly? Or maybe change it so you don't have to score them at the village. New points scheme: 1 point each disc for any pairs or triplets.

End Game Both Characters Not in Village: This is a good one. Tricky to pull off, down to the wire. Needs a name: Wanderers.

Pathfinder: This is good.

Largest territory: This is good.

Craven: Needs testing

Paranoid: Change to 7 points so someone actually tries it. Anticipating that it makes movement very hard.


Update: 10/18/2011
Based on feedback from multiple sources I want to try a couple different number patterns for the village, representing perhaps people giving up on resources that are too scarce? These are not 2 & 3 player variants, just a different way of playing:
2-3-4-3-2
2-3-4-5-4 or 2-3-4-5-3

Notes from Fifty-seventh Playtest

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Village: 1-2-2-3-4

After last week's fairly disastrous (but productive) playtest I decided to try out a new village track on my own before wasting other people's lunch breaks on it. I'm happy to report that these values were very nicely balanced, produced a nearly tie game at 32-31 points.

I played with two very different approaches. The Red player went out on the attack with a knife and a club. The Blue player started with a pouch and a spear, but didn't go hunting until picking up an Atlatl, and after the first turn always carried a torch.

Solo games are tricky, but I try to be fair, using standard Village scoring tactics for each player - selling whenever what they have is in the top 2 slots and the other player has the same type of tile. Meat and hide are a little trickier, in a two player game they rarely get up very high, but it worked out.

The only disadvantage of these village numbers that I have found is if you sell two exploration disks of the same type on the same turn - the second one is only worth 1 or 2 points. But you can always hold on to the second resource for later.

Goals

Blue player went first and had Homebody, so all he had to do was draw a plant tile, and not die.

Red player had the goal where your characters had to be away from the village at end of game. He almost pulled it off, but ended up racing home to avoid a loss, and letting the Homebody win by 1 point by failing the goal. Still, a very tight game.

Board Setup

I tried this really nasty setup with the village in all the way in the corner. By late game the red player was barely able to make it out in one turn, and once or twice had to forgo a second exploration. It certainly replaces the challenge of fighting for Largest Territory.

Notes from Fifty-sixth Playtest

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Rules Tried (and mostly failed)
This was a bit of a disaster, as you can probably see from the photo of the board at the end of the game here. But it's good to shake things up, try some different rules, even if they fail.

Village: 1-1-2-2-3
Trying to lower the score for 2 and 3 player games, this was too far. The only way to buy anything was to die. And with the third and fourth slots the same, items were either scored at the top, or the middle.

Glass Gems as Claim Markers
These were supposed to be shiny and pretty, but in reality they were just hard to see (again, look at the photo).

Wounded Animals Flee 1 Space (diagonal OK)
This didn't come up that I remember, we'll try it again. A little funky only having diagonal movement in one place in the rules, but easier to describe than the whole "move 2 spaces if possible, otherwise 1, only pass through empty spaces" mess.

2 Player Board Setup with 3 Players
Tried the tighter board setup, with mountains surrounding the village in a corner, that had been intended for 2 players. Now that we don't have to leave room for everyone to compete for Largest Territory, a nastier setup like this might work.

Goals
The only goal of note this time was Over the Harvest Moon, which is a really cool idea pulled from hearts/spades to have a player try to get only Gather points. Aside from being way off with the village track (impossible to achieve) it really messed with the game. I played it, so I ran around just trying to gather things, ignoring Rabbits, Deer, etc. It raced the end of the game, making it unsatisfying.

To Try Next

1. Same board setup - this might be right for 3 players, but this test was so off it's hard to tell.
2. Village: 1-2-2-3-4 - I tried this out in a solo "2 player" game, it worked well. 
3. Try the "Harvest Moon" approach as a legitimate tactic, gathering tons of information about the board.
4. Wounded animals flee 1 space (diagonal OK)

Notes from Fifty-fifth Playtest

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Rules Tried
Receive 3 points instead of 4 when you re-spawn.
No largest territory bonus at the end, it became one of many secret goals.
Fleeing animals can move through any space without a character in it, but must still end on an empty space (didn't come up).

Observations
One play is not enough testing, and we had 3 instead of 4 players this time, but it would appear that removing the area majority element of the game really raises the level of play. A theory as to why is that having one less thing to worry about freed players up to focus on the more subtle aspects of interaction in this game. To really play this game well you have to pay close attention to the demand track in the village and to the other players. By not worrying as much about which specific spaces we were fighting over, it freed up working memory to concentrate on other things.

Secret Goals
Instead of going over each goal that was attempted in this game, I'm going to try to organize the goals themselves, so we can see how they are distributed. Points in bold.

High Risk Hunting: Bear Wrestler (spear + bare handed 8pts.), Most Deadly 4pts., Brave (1 of each deadly 7pts.), Crack Shot (squirrel/rabbit hunting 6/4pts.), Bare handed squirrel or rabbit 6pts).

These are good in moderation. They certainly lead players down unexpected paths, but can often become a dangerous unbeatable obsession.


Claimed Spaces: Explorer (furthest from village 5pts.), Un-claimed Neighboring Space 1pt. ea., Pathfinder (longest line 4pts.), Largest Territory 3pts., Homebody (most touching village 4pts.), Loner (no spaces next to village 3pts.).

The trouble with area bonuses is that they can "reward winning". But as variable secret goals it's less of a brute force win, so it works much better.

Exploration Discs Collected: Most Types 3pts., Craven (most small animals 5pts.), Omnivore (same # plants and animals 4pts.), Productive (most tiles, including unsold 7pts.), Unsold Items 3pts * (# - 1), Hoarder 2pts. pairs, 5pts. triplets, Fewest Types 5pts.


I like that these can encourage weird collecting behavior, but collecting specific things can be very difficult to do deliberately.

Equipment: Armed to the teeth (3 weapons 2pts.), Full set of Equipment (6 items 3pts.)

Even if re-pointed to compensate for the cost of the items, these can probably go. It's easy to buy stuff, especially if you die.

Memory: Master Scout (name face-down discs 2pts ea.)

I'm too scared to take this myself, but it's a very cool one. Need more like this.

Dying: 3+ goals 1pt. ea.


Haven't tried.

Odd Behavior: End Game not in village 5pts., Over the Harvest Moon (if 0 hunt, 40+ gather, gather is base score).

We haven't tried these, very interested to see how they work. Harvest Moon will need adjustment based on number of players. Maybe it's 50 minus 5 per player or something like that?

To Try Next

1. When you die, pick from one out of 2 secret goals.
2. Continue to refine the secret goals, work out the distribution of challenging high scoring goals and easy but lower scoring ones.
3. Flip side of the village board could have a value track for 2 and 3 player games with lower numbers: 1-1-2-3-4. They're in the same arrangement, but would keep the point scoring down in these games

Notes from Fifty-fourth Playtest

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New rule
Characters only get 3 points worth of equipment when they die, not 4. Four points plus a goal may have been too much, with the new lower prices you could really gear up.

Goals
Smallest area: Was 5, changing to 3 points, remove if no largest territory bonus. Encourages poaching, which is a good thing anyway. Although it can be situational, others have to fail before your turn.

Fewest Types of tiles collected: is good. Fun one to try to accomplish while still getting lots of tiles.

2 points for 2 unused arrows: needs clarification and re-pointing or removed. Couldn't actually make points off this one because you had to pay points for the arrows. Neat idea though, maybe have a "fletcher" goal that's properly pointed.

Friendly Neighbor could have alt version where your largest area must touch spaces claimed by each other player. Also, this sort of goal may have scaling problems with 2 or 5 players.

Productive (most collected tiles): might have to go. It does not help people come from behind, it helps the winner win, or might help the 2nd place player take first.

To Try Next
Fleeing animals should be able to move through spaces without characters, even if they are claimed or have other tiles on them. If it can't move 2 then it moves 1.

Largest Territory bonus becomes Secret Goal, which also means removing any anti-area territory bonus related rules.

Notes from Fifty-third Playtest

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Rules Tried
When a character dies, you re-spawn with one new goal in addition to the one(s) you already had.

Largest Territory scores 2 points.

Secret Goals
Friendly Neighbor: Definitely altered player behavior leading them to make an unexpected move. I think that's what I like most about these secret goals, you don't know what everyone is up to, but once you're familiar with them you can guess. And then once people start guessing and blocking, players can start bluffing too.

Productive: As I'd hoped this goal encouraged the player to adjust his strategy in order to accomplish the goal and hunt instead of sell on the last turn.

Homebody: This goal also encouraged a shift in strategy, getting a the player to hunt a squirrel he wouldn't have otherwise.

Hoarder: This one is tricky if you pick it up later on, but is usually good for a couple points.

Master Scout: Now this one was impressive. With 3 tiles on the board, two of them were wolves that had been recently revealed, but the third he deduced based on what I didn't pick up, and when I didn't sell. Very impressive, a good challenging goal, and I think it's appropriately pointed.

Explorer: I could easily have accomplished this if I was paying more attention. I'd already started down the route of building a path away from the others (so they couldn't poach the bear I was trying to find). Maybe 5 points is too much to reward what is already a good strategy?

Brave: I accidentally accomplished the second half of this goal for 3 points by killing 2 bear. Since the primary reward is so high, it probably shouldn't have a secondary goal anymore, now that you can get multiple goals.

Bear Wrestler: I need to do the math on this one, it's hard! But I like that it encourages risky behavior. Especially since dying now rewards an extra goal. What I don't like about this goal is that you have to reveal it. It's not fair to set the precedent of requiring players to remember how one particular animal was killed.

New Ideas
4 points worth of equipment plus a new goal may be too much reward for dying. The point cost of equipment is down to where you can get 2-3 items for 4 points. We should try just 3.

As we develop goals, now that it is possible to get several of them, and you get to pick one from 2 options at the beginning, the high risk high reward goals shouldn't have secondary goals anymore.

I want to try moving the Largest Territory bonus into the secret goals system as just another goal. I don't like the way it rewards the player who is probably winning already. There's already ease of movement advantage to be had by grouping your claimed spaces, especially in a path. But we'll have to test it, there is a legitimate concern that players will just start poaching all the time, opportunistically grabbing spaces without strategy.

But I also think poaching is a good strategy that people don't use enough. Knowing what it is you're up against greatly improves your odds, and it adds a nice level of conflict to the game.

Notes from Fifty-second Playtest

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Rules Tried
Largest territory bonus reduced to 2 points to make it only a tie breaker, not game decider. It didn't come up because the game wasn't very close this time.

We also tried sticking with the same player order as last playtest, trying to see if that makes a difference. We'll stick with it for the sake of testing, but I think a bad roll, or risky decision that didn't pay off, make much more difference.

Equipment Updates
Changed the Knife (+3 / 2 damage) cost to 3, and dropped the Sling (+4 / 1 damage) down to cost 2. Everything is feeling pretty balanced, no single weapon strategy dominated.

Secret Goals
Brave: It's funny how often there ends up being a deadly animal that camps out right next to the building and kills one or two player's hunters over and over again. Combine this with a goal that leads players towards stubbornly attacking a deadly Wolf, and it can make for a rough game. Still think this goal has merit. The 7 point reward is great, and encourages playing against the normal strategies (wolves are very often left on the board at the end of the game).

Update: the goal name should be changed to "Brave or Stupid" (based on feedback from the playtester who tried it).


Bushwhacker: Getting 5 points for claiming the most spaces might just be another one of those "rewarding players for winning" goals. But it might be worth trying one more time to see if a player might really change tactics and go for it, poaching easy kills and adopting different equipment approaches (spending extra for pouch, torch, atlatl).

Crack Shot: This goal is good in that it encourages players to go after small animals that are also hard to kill. Squirrels, like wolves, are often left over at the end of the game, this goal helps with that. I do need to clarify, maybe just in Appendix B, what happens if you kill a second squirrel and then die yourself, does it still count? (the goal specifically says you don't have to sell it).

Pathfinder: This one is fun in that it forces a very specific territory shape. In retrospect, I might have picked a single shot kill weapon, with the Bow & Arrow my prey was pushed away from the space I wanted to claim. Got lucky and nobody prevented me from connecting my territory, but was a close call because this goal isn't tie friendly like others.

New Ideas
We came up with what has promise to be a breakthrough idea while brainstorming how to further integrate secret goals into the game play, and how they might be used as a catch-up mechanism. Currently when one of your characters die the character's cousin comes into play with 4 points to spend on equipment. This makes up for the lost equipment, but not the lost opportunity. One suggestion was that you might be able to score some of those points rather than spend them on equipment. A reasonable idea, but has potential for abuse, and would keep the Atlatl from coming into play as often.

Then Dan had the idea that when a character dies the player gets an additional goal. We'd been playing with various ways you might get more goals during the game, but if it's without price then there would have to be a penalty for failing to accomplish the goal, which would require more fair (aka boring) goals. But if you can get a goal to balance a setback, introducing larger potential hidden scores at the end, it might be possible to make a silent comeback and pull off a surprise win!

Notes from Fifty-first Playtest

Experimental Weapon: Knife

New Equipment
In my previous post I showed how there is space in the numbers for another piece of basic equipment. Today we tried out the knife as illustrated here. With its effectiveness against the Deer and Bear, it is under-valued at 2 points. My math only took into account the odds of hitting, it was missing the value of the animals it is good at killing.

To Try: raise the cost of the knife to 3, lower the cost of the sling to 2.

Secret Goals
Starting to test the secret goals in earnest here (not just me mucking around with solo plays). Here's what we tried today:

Gather: like with the old Hunt/Gather prediction card, this is more or less a guess, only as a goal you don't even get to make the guess yourself. Ditching this and Hunter.

Paranoid: the best result of measuring your area using diagonals, even if we changed it so that it counted diagonal plus orthogonal, would be to have a better chance of winning the largest territory bonus. But that's pretty lame compared to actually getting additional points. Couple that with other changes I'm going to make (see End Game Scoring below), and this one is out.

Explorer: this one is fun because it gives you something specific to do throughout the game. Five points may be high, since this is something that isn't too hard to deliberately accomplish and being away from the pack is helpful anyway. Maybe this should go down to 4 points?

Hoarder: This one is fun, but a bit random. The wording was unclear, but turns out it's better to allow multiple pairs of tiles, but I'm going to lower them to 2 points per pair. Still 5 points per set of 3 (there are only 2 of each animal, so it's really hard to do).

End Game Scoring
The 5 point largest territory bonus has been the deciding factor in too many games. This is because if there are two players who are vying for the lead, it becomes more like a 10 or 20 points. They double in value because normally half your points are discarded through only scoring the lower track (more than half if you didn't balance perfectly), but the end game bonus is applied directly to your final score. And double again because they are points that you gain, but your opponent does not.

Conclusion: I'm going to reduce the largest territory bonus to 2 or 3 points, so that it is truly a tie breaker. Or maybe 3 points for the largest, 1 for the second largest, or 2 points each for a tie?

Other Ideas
Kris suggested, and I'd thought of this before, that we might want to be able to collect more secret goals, along with penalties for not completing them. More hidden scoring through non-obvious strategies could improve the game.

The Spear Revisited

Making good progress on the third draft of the rules. Actually on Appendix A: Equipment. Going through the hunting weapons one more time got me thinking, why don't I have any that are 3 (+to hit) / 2 (damage)? I could introduce something new, like an axe or a knife, but what would really be nice is improving the Spear. With its low "to hit" bonus, its greatest appeals now are its low cost and that it's awesome when you've got an Atlatl. If the Spear was 3/2, the Atlatl could become +0/+2 damage instead of +1/+1, but first I've got to run the numbers...

Weapon(s)	Squirrel	Rabbit	Deer	Boar	Wolf	Bear	Avg.
Club	38%	50%	74%	63%	38%	50%	52%
Club First Hunt†	50%	63%	84%	74%	50%	63%	64%
Sling	74%	84%	91%*	91%**	74%**	84%**	83%
Spear (2/3)	50%	63%	84%	74%	50%	39%*	60%
Spear (3/2)	63%	74%	91%	70%*	39%*	55%*	65%
Atlatl	63%	74%	91%	84%	63%	74%	75%
Bow&Arrow	74%	84%	95%	83%*	55%*	71%*	77%
Sling + Spear (2/3)	74%	84%	91%*	74%	50%	52%*	71%
Sling + Spear (3/2)	74%	84%	91%	76%*	46%*	55%*	71%

† First Hunt is the +1 bonus a Club gets against an animal discovered this turn.
* Two hits required.
** Will not kill the animal.

So, statistically the 3/2 spear is marginally better than the 2/3 spear by itself, and combined with a Sling it's less than 1% weaker. But I don't like how much effectiveness it has lost against the Board and Wolf, which were prime Spear targets before. And also the number of animals it requires 2 hits to kill have gone up, which drives up the cost of using a Spear.

Conclusion: The spear, as it is now, occupies an important space in the weapon hierarchy, I will leave it as it is. But there is definitely room within this tight number set for another weapon, one that is +3 to hit, does 2 damage, and because it often takes two hits I'd make it cost 2 and have unlimited uses like a Club or Sling.

Bow and Sling in Color

Sling, art by Bob Garvin

Bow, art by Bob Garvin

Deer in Color

Deer, art by Bob Garvin

Notes from Fiftieth Playtest

A two player playtest with Cybil and myself.

Rules Tried
Villag:e 2-2-3-4-5
Scouting: 3 spaces, no start/end requirements. Only character with lowest score on their track and no tiles can scout.

Secret Goals & Evaluation
Productive as it is now gives a small reward to a player who is doing well. Let's try changing it to 7 points for collecting the most, which might encourage a different strategy.
Omnivore was a fun one to play, helps keep you focused on balance which is good to be doing anyway. Maybe should be only 4 points.

Scouting was used once, but too late. Also, if other player is picking up every turn you fall even further behind.

I'm going to call the village set at 2-2-3-4-5. That bottom slot rarely, if ever, comes into play. But if it does it's on the last turn by a player who got totally hosed by the players before.

To Research
Should the village value track go from low to high or high to low? Cybil is convinced that they normally go high to low, but I'll have to find other example games to verify.

Notes from Solo Playtests Forty-seven to Forty-nine

Here are some rough notes from three solo playtests trying (and failing) to test out some scouting rules variants, but making good progress on the new secret goal rules.

Playtest Forty-seven

Solo playtest, 3 "players"

Rules Tried
Village: 2-2-3-4-5
Scouting: 2 spaces, normal movement. Only restriction is that the character can't have collected any tiles.

Secret Goals & Evaluation
Friendly Neighbor is easy with 3
Master Scout is hard when other players scout -
Brave should have alternative condition - most deadly animals 3 points.

Scouting worked well, but has a bit of a "take advantage of your lead" feel to it, which is the opposite of what I'm trying to do.

Playtest Forty-eight

Solo playtest, 3 "players"

Rules Tried

Village: 2-2-3-4-5
Scouting: 3 spaces, only by player with lowest combined score by a character without tiles. If tie, least tiles. Still tie, no scouting.

Secret Goals & Evaluation
Bear Wrestler is very hard to accomplish, worth the 8 points.
Homebody is not too hard, and conveys some strategic advantage when accomplished and so should remain at 3-4 points.
Crack Shot, as with any other goal requiring 2 specific tiles this is very easy to get blocked out of. Have to think of an alternate goal, 2 rabbits?

Forgot about the scout rule until it was too late for the blue player. Scouting later in the game only makes you lose sooner. I'll have to try it again, but fear the required math makes it too fussy a rule.

Playtest Forty-nine

This would make a good
default 2 player setup

Solo playtest, 3 "players"

Rules Tried
Village 1-2-3-4-5
Scouting: 3 spaces, no start/end requirements. Only character with lowest score on their track and no tiles can scout.


Secret Goals & Evaluation

Hoarder is hard to intentionally get 3 of the same, even by scouting multiple times. Maybe switch rewards to 3 for 2 and 5 for 3?

Bushwhacker (most spaces) will take some practice to do well. Maybe more points?
Explorer is fun, but 6 may be too many points, often advantage to escape the crowd near the village.

Scout, by the time I remembered it, was not enough to catch up. A turn or two earlier it might have helped.

Conclusion
It's time to step back and re-think the scouting rules, or scrap them entirely. I do like the increased strategy & memory they add, but if the rule isn't helping people who are behind catch up, or worse, giving an advantage to players in the lead, then it's not helping.

Secret goals are fun. They're more engaging throughout the game than the old end-game scoring. But I'll have to watch out for goals that can be spoiled easily near the beginning. Perhaps the answer is that each goal should have 2 parts - 2 ways to accomplish it with different points for each?

New Secret Goal Rules

Up until now the end-game scoring bonuses have been based on guessing which track (Hunt or Gather) will have the highest score at the end. While players could manipulate this a little, and might make a decision during the last few turns based on it, the only thing it really did was provide a way for my playtesters to tell me how balanced they think the game will be after I present a new rules change, but before we play.

In place of this rule which wasn't really working, I am pulling forward a feature that was planned for the "characters" expansion: variable player goals. At the beginning of the game each player gets a card with their own goal conditions and point bonus.

The high level purpose of these goals is to prevent the players from knowing who has won until the very end, to keep everyone engaged. The in-play purpose of individual goals will often be to encourage players to do things they wouldn't normally do. Much like Dominion: Cornucopia encourages players to buy a wide variety of cards.

Here is my initial (rough) batch of rules:

1. Pathfinder: 4 points. Most spaces in a single line.
2. Paranoid: When counting the size of your territory, only count spaces that are touching diagonally.
3. Gatherer: 5 points. Highest single score is in the Gather track.
4. Hunter: 5 points. Highest single score is in the Hunt track.
5. Master Scout: If you can name all the face down tiles at end of game 2 points each, max 8.
6. Brave: 7 points. Kill at least one of each deadly animal.
7. Friendly Neighbor: If you have claimed spaces touching a space of each opponent, gain 1 point per player.
8. Homebody: 4 points. Most spaces touching the village (ties count).
9. Crack shot: 6 points. Kill 2 squirrels (don't need to sell).
10. Bear Wrestler: 8 points. Kill a bear with a spear and naked hands (+0 to hit, 1 damage).
11. Explorer: 6 points. Space furthest from the village (as a character would walk). Ties do not count.
12. Bushwhacker: 3 points. Most spaces claimed. Ties do not count.
13. Hoarder. 2 points for selling 2 of the same tile, 6 points for selling 3 of the same. 8 points for doing both (with different tile types)
14. Productive: 3 points. Most sales. Ties do not count.
15. Omnivore: 5 points. Same number of plants sold as animals.

In order for these rules to work players will place tiles that were sold to the village under their goal card. This also helps clear up ambiguity around the discard pile rules.

Notes from Forty-sixth Playtest

Board at End Game

Scouting

This was the second test of a super powerful form of scouting where you can start from the village and explore every empty space you pass. When done correctly (*cough* playtest 45 group *cough*) this will let you explore 3 spaces, gathering lots of information and rapidly accelerating the end of the game.

Another note was that it's a good way to guarantee those 3 tiles are adjacent to your own area.

To Try:

Scouting follows normal exploration rules (4 moves, 2 explores, 2nd explore ends the turn). It would still be restricted to when you don't have any tiles, but it doesn't matter where you start or end your turn. My hope is that this would make it more consistent with other rules, more versatile than it is now, but less powerful in influencing the pace of the game.

Village 1-1-2-3-4

These values are the best so far at balancing the Hunt and Gather score tracks. They punish players who hoard a bunch of animals and try to sell them all at once.) Three out of four players scored higher in Gather, though not the player who won.

But the numbers are too low. I would like there to be more choice in which weapons you take, but in this game the points were so tight I actually went out hunting a second time with a club, even though I had the points to buy something else. And that turned out to be the correct decision, I clubbed a bear and got 2nd place, 2 points behind first.

Also, with the points so low the "secret goal" scoring made too much difference. The winner should have been a runaway winner, but the 10 point swing of guessing wrong while others guess made it really close. Now if we had worked harder to make those goals, that would be a different story...

To Try:

Values: 2-2-3-4-5. Those are very similar (although proportionally they're closer in value to each other). And again, I think that will take us one step closer back to where we started and I'm predicting we will end up: 1-2-3-4-5.

Wounded Animals

There was a suggestion that instead of the hunter getting to choose where a wounded animal runs, that another player should do that. We had been using the driving of the animal (not without historical precedent) as part of our strategy, moving the animal into a more strategic position for our area majority bonus. But I'm willing to try any suggestion, so we'll give it a go.

One effect of having one of your neighbors move the fleeing animal would be to weaken the higher "to hid" odds but lower damage weapons, the Sling and the Bow. Now, compared to the Club and Spear I might be OK with that, it's my opinion that Club and Spear are a little weak. But it would also increase the power of the Atlatl, and that would be bad. It's taken a long time to get that thing balanced.

Rabbit in Color

Rabbit, art by Bob Garvin

Torch in Color

Torch, art by Bob Garvin

Notes from Forty-fifth Playtest

End Game Board

A four player game with some slight adjustments to the numbers, and a very powerful version of scouting.

The Numbers
For the village track values I used 1, 1, 2, 3, 4. These served to encourage selling when things reach the top value, and punish hoarding of animals. With these values the Hunt and Gather tracks were much closer than they have been. Scores were much lower, but if I want to change that it would be easy enough to change it to 2, 2, 3, 4, 5. But it is nice how these low numbers really discourage hoarding animals, because the value of selling a second animal in the same turn is so low. Although, the player who won sold a Wolf (3 hide, 0 meat) followed by a Boar (0 hide, 3 meat), and that worked really well.

I also dropped the Pouch down to 3 points cost, and still allowed players to keep it after selling. But with the numbers so low players (ok, and by players I mean me) have to be really careful about purchasing too much. I started out with an Atlatl, brought in some money to get a spear, and also purchased a Torch and a Pouch. Didn't realize final scored would be in the teens when the game ended unexpectedly fast.

Scouting
One small change to scouting made a big difference. The way we played it this time, you can scout starting from the village, as long as you end the turn there as well. As you can see from the end game board, that meant more information was gathered, but it also allowed players to leave tiles with annoying animals (like Squirrels) on the board. Every tile left on the board is one fewer player turn the game took to finish.

We'll have to try it some more and see if everyone always scouts on the first turn.

To Clarify
There was some confusion (still) over the Atlatl. This was not my usual playtest group, so they have long gaps between when they play, and I always have a hard time gauging how much they've forgotten between plays. I think the latest versions of the cards will help, but I'm also thinking about changing the Atlatl back to saying +1/+1 rather than 3/4, to help clarify that this is a bonus that it applies to a spear throw.

To Design Next
I've been annoyed with the current end game scoring bonus system for a while now. The "largest territory" bonus works great, although it might be worth considering friendly ties or a 2nd place area bonus. But it's the "guessing whether the highest single score will be in Hunt or Gather" rule that's so hard to explain, and so arbitrary. It basically rewards the playtester who has the best sense of what the latest changes will do to the balance of the game.

It's still important to have secret scoring so that you don't know who has won until the end. I was going to use the character cards (planned for the first expansion) to add more variety, but I think it needs to be done before then.

What I'm going to try adding is a small deck of Secret Goals. They might be similar to the current goals, making sure that Gather scores highest, or they might be more complex, like kill one of each of the deadly animals. The point bonus will vary based on the complexity, I'm thinking 3-8 points. Also, I'll make a slight modification to game play - when you turn in a tile for points it gets placed under your secret goal card. That will help clarify whether that information is public (we'd been playing with a messy face-up discard pile), and let players keep track of what they have done.

Wolf in Color

Wolf, art by Bob Garvin

Pouch Art in Color

Pouch, art by Bob Garvin

Herbs and Berries in Color

Herbs Tile, art by Bob Garvin

Berries Tile, art by Bob Garvin

Atlatl and Club Equipment Cards

Stone Club art by Bob Garvin

Atlatl art by Bob Garvin

Club and Boar in Color

Wild Boar by Bob Garvin

Stone Club by Bob Garvin

Nuts in Color

by Bob Garvin

Updated July 31st, 2011

Nuts, art by Bob Garvin

Atlatl In Color

by Bob Garvin

of Bob Garvin Art

Notes from Forty-fourth Playtest

Click to Enlarge

Eddy (playing white) pulled off his first win! It was close though, came down to the last few actions where he sealed his area majority bonuse even after Kris pulled ahead in regular play points. I had a few bad rolls at inopportune times and lost momentum. Dan likewise got stuck between a couple bad options, and chose the one that got him killed carrying loaded pouch.

Today's Experiments

Village values: 1-2-3-4-4
Everyone's convinced that the low bottom value has a negative impact on Gatherer tile sales. I don't think it actually comes up that often that selling a second tile of the same type makes much difference. But I did notice that there was less pressure to sell because the values were lower, and there were more spots at the highest slot, which meant there wasn't the clear and obvious "it's at 5, sell now!"

End result was it didn't have the intended effect, and Hunt won the highest score again.

Pouch doesn't get discarded
This helped bring them into play by justifying the high cost (4 points), but they're still really expensive and risky too, 6 points is a lot for a Pouch + Torch, more even than Atlatl + Spear is now.

To Try Next

Village: 2-2-3-3-4 (Kris' suggestion)
Since the numbers are so small, one point either way makes a meaningful difference. The hope is that this opens up more opportunities to sell even when things are a ways down the track, but still provides that driving incentive of a single highest value spot. But at the same time maybe it'll be a bit more turn order friendly with the values not going as low. Right now if you get stuck with the same type of tiles as other players, and they sell first, you're hosed. These numbers hopefully provide more opportunities to sell. Even if meat and hide are at the 2 and 3 spots near the bottom, you can still get decent points.

Pouch costs 3, and is not discarded when emptied. My theory is we can increase Gather scores by providing better Gather equipment. There will be new opening turn options, Pouch+Club, Pouch+Spear, even Pouch+Arrow if you're feeling like gambling. But my hope is that Pouch+Torch is still expensive enough that everybody doesn't play them both all the time again.

More Tiles for Five or More Players

Current Tiles:
2 Squirrel
2 Rabbit
2 Deer
2 Boar (deadly)
2 Wolf (deadly)
2 Bear (deadly)
4 Nuts (values: 1,2,2,2)
4 Herbs (values: 1,2,2,2)
4 Berries (values: 1,2,2,2)

24 Tiles, 12 Plants, 12 Animals, and half of those animals are deadly. Now, to add more tiles and maintain this balance...

More Tiles:

3 Squirrel

3 Rabbit

3 Deer

3 Boar (deadly)

3 Wolf (deadly)

3 Bear (deadly)

6 Nuts (values: 1,1,2,2,2,2)

6 Herbs (values: 1,1,2,2,2,2)

6 Berries (values: 1,1,2,2,2,2)

36 Tiles, 18 Plants, 18 Animals. OK, cool, it's not that hard to keep the numbers balanced and scale up to a slightly longer game.

The next question is, do I want to make it longer? One of the important goals of this game design has been to keep the game short. I think games with lots of randomness (in this case tile drawing and dice rolling), either need to be really short, so if you're losing it doesn't drag on, or really long so that the probability has time to even itself out. If the game is currently 30-45 minutes long, increasing the tile count by half would take it from 40 to 60 minutes. Does this game work as an hour long game?

Notes from Forty-third Playtest

Final score symmetry
White: Lester, Blue: Dan, Red: Kris, Orange: Me

Crazy close game today! Lester went out to an early lead collected enough extra tiles to put pressure on the village value track. But Dan came from behind to tie him on opposite tracks, both for the highest score bonus, and lower scores. And then on the very final turn, and his second attempt, he took out a squirrel to tie for the area bonus.

Meanwhile I died a lot and Kris struggled with the score track, he beat me out by one point in the end.

Village: 2-2-3-4-5
Looks like it helped a lot with the hunt/gather balance. Hunt total was higher, but highest scores tied. If this change does work I'm not sure why I wouldn't make it 1-2-3-4-5. Nobody ever sells at that lowest value, it could just as easily be 0-2-3-4-5.

Scouting and Torch on trial
This game was also a trial run to give Scout and Torch explore one last shot. Torch will be simplified, but Scout looks like it could stay.

Dan played guinea pig and used it deliberately, spending his first two turns just gathering information. It was a come from behind battle, but in the end he caught up and tied for a win.

Now I want to start teaching the rule differently. Instead of treating Scouting as an exception, I want to teach it as a full fledged third option (Hunt, Gather, Scout), that can be used by either character under certain circumstances. I think it will add another level of strategy to the game.

July 7th Update: Things To Try Next

Talking about the Village value track and asking the question, "what am I trying to solve?" bring up an idea - once the village track gets moving, once people start selling, the game gets more interesting. What could I do to encourage that? How about one of these value sequences? 1-2-3-4-4 or 2-3-4-5-5?

Also, on a slightly related not, does anybody else think the Pouch might now be over-priced at 4? I haven't seen people buying it as much as they used to, maybe we could try lowering the cost to 3? That would open up more starting turn combinations: Pouch+Club, Pouch+Spear, or planning ahead Pouch+Arrow.

Notes from Forty-second Playtest

Beejell and Nancy

Another five player game! Cybil's mom Nancy joined us, along with Beejel and Spencer. They hadn't played in a while, but picked it up fine. Nancy's starting to get dangerous, planning ahead. Cybil's still hunting and dying, although I joined her this time in the death-respawn loop. At some point she'll figure out that the Bow and the Sling should be her favorite weapons, because they're the hardest to miss with.

Setup Rules
Had a minor breakthrough with the setup rules; simply that I should stop trying so hard to build a good random layout system. Instead I'm just going to provide different default setups based on the number of players, and then say players can make their own, as long as they do so before rolling to see who goes first.

The Torch
Played this equipment with only the "fends off animals" ability and it's just fine. The extra exploring didn't come up.

Scouting
I think it's safe to say this rule is dead. It just doesn't come up enough to merit the effort of teaching it. The most common form of failure is dying, and that already has a catch-up mechanism. Cybil died 3 times and still got second place.

5 and 6 player
This game definitely plays five, and might even play 6 players. I need so spend some time with the numbers to see what tiles I would add if I want to extend the game a little longer with more players. 24 tiles is so beautifully balanced, there are 50% plants, 50% animals, 2 of each animal and 4 of each plant. Have to maintain good balance, but not made the game too long.

Hunt vs. Gather
Hunt got the highest score again. I still need to try new village values: 2-2-3-4-5.

Notes from Forty-first Playtest

End Game

Finally a playtest with 5 players! Eddy, Dan, Lester, and Kris all joined me during lunch today. Lester won, hoarding plants and a bunch of animals and guessed correctly that Hunt would score the highest. Dan and Kris also guessed correctly. The game was so low-scoring that Dan tied for second collecting only 3 tiles. Eddy had a great poach early on, but ran into some trouble (a.k.a. lots of bears) mid-game. I did really well hunting, but drew a couple 1 value plants, pressed my luck, and died, running out of time to sell everything I'd collected and ending up with one point.

Challenges

In a 5 player game you don't get many turns
This makes it hard to recover from one bad decision or roll. But the turn still go fast enough, the game might support up to 6 with extra tiles. 

Village placement is brutal with 5 players
The current method I'm using involves rolling dice and taking the highest roll. With 5 players that means 10+, which can put the village against the top edge, which guarantees people are gonna get blocked, and also with so many players it's a long walk to clear spaces. Also as players 4 and 5 Kris and I were too chicken to put the obstacles in interesting spots. I need some simpler board setup rules. 

Hunt keeps getting the highest score
The last 3-4 games Hunt has gotten the highest score, since raising the Wolf to 3 hide, and changing the plant value distribution to 1-2-2-2. We discussed it after the game and I think it was Kris who landed on what might be the problem: the village values (currently 2-3-3-4-5) guarantee each animal gets you at least 6 points, so you can hoard a bunch and the timing doesn't matter as much when you sell them. This was exaggerated by  how few turns you get in a 5 player game. But it's close enough to balanced that I'm going to try simply changing the values to 2-2-3-4-5 and seeing if that helps. Also, even though it's counter to a lot of what I've been doing with the game, at some point I want to try a Fibonacci progression, 1-1-2-3-5 and see if player behavior acts to self-balance the points.

Torch is still too complex
The torch's second use - being able to explore a 3rd time - did come up this game for a change. And I used it quite effectively to get my gatherer killed. The goal of this last iteration of equipment design is simplification, and the torch is still effective and worth the cost as a way to fight off deadly animals without this exploration ability. I'm going to scrap this extra rule. 

Scouting hasn't come up yet
I'm striving to simplify this game as much as possible, so this rule has been on the chopping block for a while. But I want to keep it around a little while longer. First, someone (and maybe someone with a better memory than me), should try intentionally not collecting anything one turn, so that they can scout on the way back and have knowledge of 5 spaces, at the risk that others know something about 1 or 2. Second, I want to see if it really works as a catch up mechanism after a run of bad luck. Maybe Cybil will try it when Emily comes out to visit. Or else Dan's pretty good at finding the wrong thing when he's exploring.

Successes

Not too much downtime
Considering there is no simultaneous like in many modern designer games, and the only thing to do during other people's turns is memorize what is (or might be) on a face down tile, the rounds go really fast. It helps that it's fun to watch the successes and failures of the other players.

Weapon costs and abilities feel balanced
I've gone through a lot of iterations on the weapons, making them simpler, and balancing how many points they cost vs. how many points you get to start vs. how powerful they are. I'm pretty happy with where they are now. The math shows different weapons are better for different situations, and it appears to be proving out in game play, where everyone did take different weapons (and we were all successful at hunting). I think it also helps that the costs have all gone down, so there are many more opening turn options, and the cost feels like less of a detriment to playing the strategy that you want.

The rules are getting simpler
Having simplified equipment means the base game will be easier to teach. That means once I get through another draft of the rules it will be time to start working on characters! Looking forward to using them for catch-up mechanisms and end game scoring bonuses. And of course it'll back to the most entertaining part of the game design process for my playtest team, brainstorming and trying out new ideas.