Notes from Twenty-seventh, Twenty-eighth, and Twenty-ninth Playtests

left to right: Spencer and Bob

3 games with Spencer and Bob, who is going to be doing the art for this game!!

Rules & Component Notes

Teaching the game is always such a valuable experience. It's what really puts the rules to the test.

I started by walking through a couple sample turns. Then I backed up to the goals and worked my way forward again filling in details, finishing up by going over the equipment. Some people want to know the goals first, others are more interested in game play (I think this may be a boy/girl thing).

In the actual rules I think I'm going to write a thematic description of a few turns, then once the rules are explained go into the mechanics of those same turns with all the game play details.

Based on today's 3 games, here are some things I should clarify and/or fix:

• The bow's "safe distance" feature needs to be on the card.
• Whether an animal is deadly needs to be on the Exploration Tiles/Disks.
• The decision about which gathered plant goes in the Pouch should be made only after a second type is picked up.
• I need to be really clear about how the bonus points for Hunt or Gather prediction work. Or change the rule (more on that later).
• Instead of turning a card upside down to show it has been used (spear, bow, arrow) I should print them double sided with different text on each side (and clear visual queues which side starts up). That way you don't have to read upside down.
• I should put the tile distribution on the board, near the Village. That way everyone, not just the person who read the rules, has that information.
• The score track doesn't go high enough. Bob scored 42 Gather points in a game where each of us had one score track in the 30s.
• I don't need so many equipment cards, especially if I decide to have them discarded back to the supply. Having people fight over a limited supply, or be forced to try new strategies wouldn't be a bad thing.

Experiments

With the Village at one end, Spencer
(playing blue) explored the far side of the board.

The first two games we played were to learn the game, and start getting a feel for some of the strategies. The third game we decided to mix things up so that Spencer could try a counter strategy to the close-quarters fight for area majority.

We moved the village all the way to the top of the board (the white spaces in the photo to the right). As you can see, Bob (red) and I (yellow), battled it out near the village, while Spencer ran for the far end, which gave him exclusive access to the tiles he uncovered. The game was very tight, with Spencer winning by 3 points!

The Plan: based on the success of this test there are a couple things I want to do:

1. Make the board bigger. 
2. Make the village placement variable.

In order to make the board bigger I would move the Village onto its own 4"x10" board that is placed along the top edge, so that I could extend the exploration spaces all the way to the edge of the main board, and wrap the score track around both boards. I could also do two 10"x16" boards side-by-side, but that just seems too inelegant, even for a print on demand prototype.

Variable Village placement will help bring more variety to the game. The same strategies that work when play begins in one corner won't necessarily be as strong when it starts in the middle. I'm also really interested in trying a board with free-form spaces, like the Small World board.

Another Future Experiment

Sometimes the best ideas seem to come from mis-understandings of the rules as explained. What the person (in this case Bob) thought you meant ends up being more intuitive. Here's what I want to try:

• The Hunt or Gather prediction at the beginning of the game becomes not a prediction of which track will score the highest, but a personal goal for which side you will score higher on.

The hope is that this will create yet another situation of wanting to do what the other player's aren't. Maybe it's easier to score high in Gather, but if everybody else is doing that, and you're hunting, you'll have a scoring advantage in the Village.

Belligerant Madness and Updated Board

Belligerent Madness

May have found, or at least getting closer to, a typeface for the game. This one's called Belligerent Madness. Not 100% sold on it, but better than the Blackletter I was using. At least now I've got some idea what direction I'm searching for a font.



Updated Board:

Click for Details

Notes from Twenty-sixth Playtest

A four player game with Eddy, Kris, Dan, and myself.

Today's Experiments

• New market values: 5-4-3-3-2
• New asymmetrical board with circles (which behaves like a hex grid)
• Same equipment costs as last time

Observations

The tightness of the asymmetrical board offsets the increased options of the hex grid, so you can still cut people off.

But, the hex (circle) grid is visually very confusing, we want to try an asymmetrical square grid board.

First impression is the new market values help with the runaway loser problem. Before there was often a person (or 2 in a 4 player game) who scored very low, especially on Hunt when the meat & hide bottom out.

Equipment Card Distribution

Now that we have played several games where all the equipment is in face-up stacks and you can buy whatever you want (for an appropriate price), I'm taking another pass at how many of each card there should be. I want to keep the numbers small enough to create some good tension, but large enough that nobody gets boxed-out of buying what they want, at least at the beginning.

The ability to be a jerk and buy out every copy of a card should be mitigated by the carrying limits, which I'm looking to reduce to 2 equipment for Gatherers.

My thought is that re-usable items should have 5 of each, assuming the game will support 5 players. I should find out how many cards per sheet, and flesh out the available space with the rest of the cards.


Playing with the cost estimator on game crafter it looks like there's a price bump when you move from 64 to 65 cards. There are going to be 10 Hunt or Gather prediction cards, so that leaves 54 for this deck. Just an estimate, but as good a starting point as any.

• 5 Club
• 5 Sling
• 5 Atlatl (requires spear)
• 5 Bow
• 8 Spear
• 10 Arrow (requires bow)
• 8 Pouch
• 8 Torch

Game Board Version One

Click to View Details

Click to View Details

A Real Atlatl

An Atlatl I made back in high school in
Scholars in Nature (aka Sin) at Hebron Academy in Maine

Notes from Twenty-fifth Playtest

Dan (blue) wins with his Atlatl & Spear

Played out on the patio with Eddy and Dan, Robert (who used to play war games) watched and was intrigued.

Today's Rules

• Buy equipment as you leave the villiage, not after selling. This includes first turn.
• Equipment costs adjusted
• Arrow increased to 2
• Atlatl reduced to 3
• Club decreased to 1

Observations

The "just go clubbing" strategy looks like it might be viable. Atlatl & Spear is definitely effective, especially if you have a Gatherer point surplus. As usual, a lot of it comes down to how you play the market.

Buying equipment at the start of your next turn speeds things up. This game could potentially be played really fast, because you don't have to ask "are you done?". There are decisive actions that make it clear a person's turn is done (2nd explore, claiming a space, dying). Now the question is, how do we make it easier to remember to claim your space?

Giving up and area majority and going poaching (especially with an Atlatl against big animals revealed by other player's gatherers) can definitely work.

To Try Next

• Area majority bonus for 2nd (and maybe 3rd) place. Maybe 3 points (1 point for 3rd?). That way when one player gets ahead the others don't just give up and become full time poachers.

Notes from Twenty-fourth Playtest

Final scores: 19-17-13-9, and Kris who scored 9 admitted he probably should have played it safe and used his Bow rather than getting killed by the Boar using a Spear.

Today's Rules

• All equipment available for purchase in sorted face up stacks
• Start the game with 5 points worth
• Re-spawned characters also get 5 points worth
• Otherwise same rules as last playtest

Observations

It played really smoothly with all the equipment available. The focus shifts from "what can I do with what I got?", to "what is the best thing to do?". It means those equipment values will have to be extremely well tested, so everyone doesn't just go and buy the same stuff.  

To Clarify

Can you hunt empty handed? 

Next Steps

• Equipment Card distribution for the face-up stacks approach
• New equipment costs:
• Atlatl - 3
• Spear - 3
• Bow - 4
• Arrow - 2
• Club - 2 (or maybe 1)
• Pouch - 4
• Torch - 1
• Play with board/spaces layout. Square/long/irregular?

Update (7:05pm)

I forgot a rule we came up with during play! Move the buying of equipment until the beginning of the next turn as you're leaving the village. That way after you sell you'll have an entire round of everyone taking their turn to decide what to buy. Should make the game run more smoothly, and maybe even faster, if that's even possible.

Notes from Twenty-third Playtest

Back with my weekday lunch playtesting crew, plus a 4th occasional player!


Today's Rules
(some of these I've tested for several games, but reiterating them here because I'm back with my lunch time playtest crew)

• Larger village (counts as one space, but occupies 2 spaces)
• Individually priced equipment, paid for from either score track. 
• Hunter kills remain hidden (but separate from gatherer's tiles, need player boards!)
• New Character - when a character dies, when you begin a turn with the new one draw 2 equipment cards blind. You may trade one of them with the face up cards.
• When a tile is turned in for points its value drops to the bottom.
• No more leapfrog on the score track.
• A gatherer can continue exploring if their first attempt reveals a deadly animal, but they escape alive.

Observations

The prices seam reasonable so far. I've been pretty close with most of the numbers with this game.

It sucks when you die, then die again. Hard to design around a run of terrible (I'm talking <8) rolls.

Re-spawned characters definitely need a trade in. Also need to handle the case where you can't use any of the 7 available cards.

Things to Try

• New equipment card distribution and smaller deck
• All equipment available all the time

Card Back Logo Concept

Yes, the logo is based on a computer programmer joke of sorts, the double pipe "||" means "or" in ECMAScript languages like JavaScript and C.

Notes from Twenty-second Playtest

Played on the ferry coming back from Vancouver Island with Cybil and her mom.

Experiments

• Trading - in the village you can trade an un-used equipment card for a different one, exchanging face up cards.
• Blind Drawing - instead of purchasing a face-up card, you can draw from the top of the deck.
• New Character - when a character dies, when you begin a turn with the new one draw 2 equipment cards blind. You may trade one of them with the face up cards.

The trading and blind drawing don't work together. If you're going to make a purchase there is no reason not to blind draw, since you can just trade it if you don't get what you want.

New Ideas

• Individually priced equipment. That way they don't all have to be balanced perfectly.
• All equipment available all the time. Instead of a draw deck, stack equipment cards by type and make them all available for purchase.

I'm really liking this idea of pricing the equipment individually. It would really help balance between rare powerful weapons like an Atlatl, and common disposable items like an Arrow. Here's a first pass at some values:

• Atlatl - 4
• Spear - 3
• Bow - 4
• Arrow - 1
• Sling - 3
• Club - 2
• Pouch - 4
• Torch - 1

I also really want to try out having all the equipment available all the time. There's plenty of random in this game between the tile drawing and the dice rolls, if the rest can be more controllable that could make it a better game. (It's actually almost like pulling in an element of Dominion now that I think about it, but you always get to use what you buy.)

Improved Tile Prototypes

Click for Detail

Notes from Twenty-first Playtest

Today's play was another test of the new Market / "Village Needs" track behavior, where selling an item drops its value all the way to the bottom. I think this is really working, nothing gets stuck at the bottom anymore. Final score was a more balanced 32-17-15 (there was some dying and unsold stuff at the end, and there were 4 large animals on the board, but no runaway loser this time).


Today's Rules

• Hunter kills remain hidden (but separate from gatherer's tiles, need player boards!)
• Equipment costs 3 points, payed for from the current character's score.
• When something is sold in the market its value drops to the bottom.
• No more leapfrog on the score track.
• When a character dies, the next time the player picks that role they draw 2 new equipment from the top of the deck.

To Clarify

• Characters can "go to the village" even if they are already there. This would most likely happen if the market or available equipment had changed.

Future Experiments

• Re-spawned "cousin" characters, if they can't use either or both of the cards they drew, can trade with the face-up cards until they can use both of them. Note that they cannot make 2 trades if 1 would have been enough. But if there are two different trades that would make both cards work for that character, they may choose.
• Allow players to draw "blind" from the top of the deck when making an equipment purchase.
• Allow players to trade with the face up equipment cards when they are in the village. No trading used equipment.

Things to Think About

These are some ideas that aren't fully formed enough to try yet, but I'm interested in input, or if these ideas spark any other ideas.

• Is the Torch crap?
• What else would be cool for a gatherer to have?
• New market values? Selling when things are worth 5 is such a big edge, especially if you've got 3 nuts (or something). Maybe the values should be 4-4-3-2-2?
• If we do do something like that to moderate the values, can we get the Equipment back in there? It would still only be for purchase (none of this buy low, sell high crap that happened in earlier experiments). But if everyone is buying it, how do we get the value to go back down? Just have it floor itself when it reaches the top spot? I'd really like to integrate it rather than have it arbitrarily cost 3, but I haven't figured out how yet.

Notes from Twentieth Playtest

Rules from last time I attempted this game.
I've learned my lesson and start testing much sooner now!

Playtest with Cybil and her mom. Her mom's 2nd play. Cybil's mom won by a tie break, I was the runaway loser!

The goal of this week is to beef up the Euro-game aspects of Hunt or Gather. That means more long term strategy, more memory aspects, more control of supply/demand, and more indirect manipulation of other players. Also more ways to compensate for runs of bad luck.

Today's Experiment

1. When a character dies discard all equipment. "Re-spawned" cousins pick 2 equipment the first turn that role is selected.
2. Turning in a tile for points moves that type all the way to the bottom of the track no matter how many were sold.
3. Equipment costs 3 points, off either track, spent after going to the village and turning in tiles.

Observations and Next Steps

You can see how complexity led to
the failure of my initial attempt at
this game.

• Instead of letting a re-spawned cousin/sibling pick whatever they want, the equipment draw should be blind.
• I think this change to the way the Village Needs (aka market) finally solves the problem where things get stuck down at the bottom.
• Although buying equipment for 3 point definitely works, I do want to experiment with other options, if I can make them work with the theme.
• I need to add Player Boards to the Components and Design pages
• Stop leap-frogging on the score track. Assume the real one will be big enough. It gets really annoying when you're spending points and backwards hopping.
• Hunter tiles are now going to be turned face down after the kill, but kept distinctly separate from gatherer tiles (thus the need for player boards, also they'll help new players).

Notes from Nineteenth Playtest

Played with Cybil and her mom. It was her mom's first play and Cybil's third.

Playing with Cybil adds a new level of  challenge to the evolution of the game. She will put the strategic and memory aspects of the game to a test, and as a small business owner will play the supply/demand track well. But after three games she's just catching on to how "to hit" rolls and damage work. She'll eventually memorize which weapons work well against which animals, but doesn't even want to know about the odds.

So the challenge this week will be coming up with ways to deliberately manipulate the supply/demand, or at least come up with something useful to do with low value tiles.

I'm also considering whether it's time to introduce trapping as an alternative way to catch animals without having to roll dice. I was going to save it for an expansion, but maybe I'll need it sooner to give another way to work the Hunt track when your luck is running low.

Notes from Eighteenth Playtest

Played with Brandon, who has only played once before, and that was before we removed the score track. Educational to play with a newer player again. It's still baffling to me that a game I designed actually has layers of strategy.

Your first several games are figuring out how the equipment works, and starting to get a feel for the way values move on the Village Needs track. Then you start getting a feel for the ebb and flow of equipment, tiles, and really understanding the Needs track. Finally you start playing the other players. When the right time to sell is a nice little game of chicken. I'm still getting a feel for the rhythm of game as a whole, when to buy which equipment, when to hunt and when to gather.

Notes from Today's Play

• Hide started out at 5, Meat at 1. Even with this extreme split Hunt and Gather score tracks were similar.
• Now that a player's characters can pick up stuff for each other you should be able to draw blind from the top of the deck.
• Question: should a Gatherer be able to keep exploring after fending off a deadly animal with a Torch (or equivalent equipment). I'm thinking yes. It's so lame to have your turn ended early.
• We played with purchasing of equipment for 3 points. I like the balance and challenge it provides, but I definitely want to try giving re-spawned "cousins" 2 equipment.

The Early Death Problem

This game, being a Euro/Ameritrash hybrid, enjoys the exciting tension and surprise events from its American heritage, but is also suffering a bit from those swings of luck. It's especially bad if your Hunter dies early in the game. You lose your starting choice of weapon, and the positional advantage of those key spaces near the village.

One solution to this is to make equipment free. We've been trying that out for a couple of games. But I'm not convinced that it's the right direction for the game. It removes a tension filled decision of how much to spend on equipment, and whether it's better to go with the more powerful but disposable spear/bow&arrow approach, or the re-usable sling/club. It also forces you to pick things up one at a time (hopefully after a successful hunt, or you're wasting time), instead of making one big purchase when you've had a bit of luck. And it removes the strategy of using your more successful character to support the other.

Another rule we're definitely adding, whether equipment is purchased or free, is that what a character dies and is replaced by a sibling/cousin, the new character gets a piece of equipment for to start. The player has already lost a weapon, a turn, a tile, and possibly a key space on the board. To prevent them from being completely screwed they need to get something.

Now here's what got me thinking. In Small World, when you get completely destroyed you set that society into decline and come back in with a new, often more destructive, race & class and take your revenge. Coming back is often better than lingering with a mediocre society, because you're still getting some points from your society in decline. This is a catch-up mechanism without being overly artificial.

My new thought is that maybe that new characters needs to surge back in with two new equipment, giving that player an advantage to offset their loss.

Notes from Seventeenth Playtest

Suggestions

Dan, Far From Home

We played with the same rules as yesterday, so today I will just provide our observations and suggestions.

• Even if we're not going to have purchasing of equipment, hunter & gatherer characters should be able to pick up equipment for each other and exchange.
• 3 movement is probably too little, there's no poaching, and if you get boxed out of the village (see photo) it's hard to get home.
• The villiage should occupy 2 or more spaces so that the first couple turns aren't so critical.
• Considering changing Bow and Arrow cards to a combined Bow & Arrow card with one shot, and a Quiver of Arrows card with infinite shots. There would be fewer Quivers than there are currently Arrows, so there would be room in the deck for a 3rd gatherer equipment type.
• Torches - thinking about switching them to purely an "extending the day" card that would let you either explore a 3rd time, or gather a second item.
• ????? - something else could take the place of the way Torches protect Gatherers from deadly animals. Maybe something that makes noise?

Notes from Sixteenth Playtest

Board at End of Game

Today's Experiments

Swapping - does this rule even come up? Is it worth the effort to explain the edge cases it creates? It came up once this game and felt cheesy.

Move 3 Spaces - Trying to make moving around the board more challenging and cut down on poaching. After one play I'm dubious. Maybe it was chance that we clumped up and didn't interact, but I think the hidden information rules change cuts down on poaching pretty well. Also poaching can be a fun interactive part of the game. But we'll try it again and see how it goes. We can also try on a hex board when I start experimenting with board layouts.

Torch - An item that prevents a deadly animal from killing your Gatherer. Replaced 4 Arrows, 2 Clubs, 2 Slings to add 8 Torches. We picked them up (equipment is free) but they didn't really come up in play.

Easier Escape Roll - Need to roll 10 instead of 11 for a Gatherer to escape a deadly animal.

Free Equipment - Second game trying this. I'm not sold, but Dan & Kris like it. It shifts the focus so you can concentrate on turning in your tiles at the right time. I think it takes away a lot of the strategy. When equipment is purchased you can buy all the equipment you need when you need it, or be frugal in your purchases. It also means that if your hunter is doing poorly your gatherer can't take go pick up equipment for them - this was one of the several self-balancing mechanisms in the game. It lets you balance out the luck between your two characters by turning points from the one who is doing well into equipment for the one who isn't.

There are a couple issues to address with points purchasing equipment. One is that when a character dies you're put in a tough spot of having to send a gatherer to go find something to buy weapons for your hunter. To fix that I would give the "respawned" cousins one equipment card to start, picked from the face up cards.

The other issue is the math complexity behind selling tiles for points, but then having to use those points immediately to buy equipment, and only scoring the remainder. To address this we could simply turn in the tiles for points, and then move your score backwards in the track of your choice to make purchases. This would be another point of control for the players, further balancing hunt vs. gather scores.

It would be nice to try a simple tiles for equipment (or tile value for equipment) trading system.


What's Next?

We're going to try the same rules set tomorrow.

Equipment and Tile Value Distributions

Tile Distribution

These numbers were used in playtests 14 and 15.

Nuts: 4 tiles (17%), 8 combined value (15%)
Berries: 4 tiles (17%), 8 combined value (15%)
Herbs: 4 tiles (17%), 8 combined value (15%)
Meat: 8 tiles (33%), 14 combined value (27%)
Hide: 8 tiles (33%), 14 combined value (27%)

Gatherer Tiles: 12 (50%), 24 combined value (46%)
Hunter Tiles: 12 (50%), 28 combined value (54%)

Complicating factors:

• Both types of tiles have challenges in collecting them, plants have strict carrying restrictions, animals require dice rolls to kill.
• Animals values typically both move down together, as most animals have both Meat & Hide.

Equipment Distribution

Current:

8 Club
8 Sling
12 Spear
12 Arrow (requires bow)
4 Atlatl (requires spear)
8 Bow
8 Pouch

With Torches:

6 Club
6 Sling
12 Spear
8 Arrow (requires bow)
4 Atlatl (requires spear)
8 Bow
8 Pouch

8 Torch

Notes from Fifteenth Playtest

Kris Rolls 3 sixes, and kills a squirrel!

Today's Experiments

Equipment is Free! Your characters gain 1 equipment as they leave the village, but can only pick up equipment they can use themselves. At the start deal out 3 equipment and keep 1.

I'm not entirely sold. I think it's nice in that it makes it easier to recover if you die, but I think it detracts a lot from the long term strategy of the game. Whether equipment is worth buying depends a lot on where you are in the game. This experiment does speed up play.

Kris won by 1 point!

Animal Meat & Hide Values We tried them the same as playtest 14. Their values pretty much tanked. Dan pointed out that it didn't help that he got his gatherer killed while carrying a number of Herbs and Berries, which kept demand for those high.

What's Next?

• Keep keep tuning the Meat & Hide Values.
• Reduce the number you have to roll to defend your gatherer from deadly animals.
• Add Torches to the equipment deck, an item that defends the gatherers from deadly animals.
• Reduce movement to 3 (wounded animals only move one).
• Experiment with different sizes and shapes for the board.

Update: More Ideas

• In the version of the game where you still have to pay for equipment, when a character dies the "cousin" who takes his or her place will get to draw 3 equipment and keep one.
• The rules for "swapping" face down tiles are unclear, and it doesn't come up very often, is it time to bury them?
• Speaking of Berries, would the market (which I want to rename "Village Needs") if I removed them so that the Nuts and Herbs were balanced with the Meat and Hide? With the new animal values this might work. Time to run the numbers again.

Notes from Fourteenth Playtest

Josh, not dying

Two player game, rules teach and play in a bit under and hour (he'd read the rules before hand, such as they are).

Josh had a rocky start, dying near the beginning of the game. But he got it sorted out and played the market well. In the end the score was only separated by a single Hunt point, and a single Exploration tile!

What we tried:
I adjusted the animal numbers down from yesterday, and the effect this time was the Gather track scored high. Squirrel and Rabbit still 1 and 1. Deer 2 meat 1 hide, Boar 2 meat, Wolf 2 hide, and Bear 1 meat 2 hide.

Hidden information - Josh took more advantage of this than I've seen, exploring to find out lots of information. You can even see it in the board state at the end of game in the photo.

End game scoring - smaller numbers are definitely better, especially as the game balance gets tighter.

Things to try:
11 is probably too high to roll to see if you die. I'm thinking 9 or 10. Those still feel scary, but statistically are much different.