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.

Colored and Shaded Art Preview

by Bob Garvin

Notes from Fortieth Playtest

Dan & Ashley. Well, mostly just Ashley,
you see Dan every playtest.

A teaching game with Dan and his girlfriend Ashley. She may have just learned this game, but she's no newbie gamer. In fact, she won with what I think is the highest single score I've seen in this game, 40 points. And that includes the games we played when equipment was free.

Notes
The cards will need text. Current prototypes are just numbers and sketches. But I want to keep it to just a sentence or two. I think the Torch can be stripped down to just fending off animals. It's still worth the 2 points, and won't require as much explanation.

40 points!

Rules We Tried
I taught the new scouting rules, but they didn't come into play. I'll keep them a round for a few more playtests, I think they're going to be important as a catch-up mechanism.

Notes from Thirty-ninth Playtest

A tricky playtest with Cybil and her mom. Not sure how they have such a hard time with this game. Between brazenly attacking a known wolf while carrying two kills (and dying of course), failing to hit a deer with a bow (95% odds) twice, and proceeding to gather all 4 of the same plant, there's not much I can do to adjust the odds against those events.

But, that said, this game does have a runaway loser problem. Once you've failed a couple rolls, run out of arrows or spears, and have to walk home empty handed it's really hard to catch up.

To Try Next
The scouting rules are on the chopping block. I haven't taught them the last two times I've explained the game. I want to give them one more shot, with enough power to really act as a catch-up mechanism.

I'm going to try a version of scouting that I had previously dismissed as too powerful: A hunter or gatherer, having failed to collect any tiles, may declare that they wish to scout and move to the village. During that move they may explore any empty spaces they land on, always keeping the tile secret. No tiles may be collected, but the character is immune to deadly animals and does not reveal them.

Cards with Sketches, No Text

Notes from Thirty-eighth Playtest

Ben & Dan

Three player game with Dan and a new player, Ben. Dan had the worst run of gathering luck I've seen, uncovering only animals, many of them deadly. Ben didn't have any trouble learning the rules, taught quickly. Left the follow-on attack rules, saving them for when there was a wounded animal. Left out the scouting rules entirely, they probably won't make the next draft.

Check out Dan's row
of animals he gathered

Today's Experiment
Used the numbers from my cost work from the last couple weeks, they open up a lot of possibilities. I tried out opening with a Torch and two Arrows, so I could safely gather something for enough points to get a Bow. Have to see what else players come up with.

Solo Playtest Three

It's take a couple weeks, and I haven't let anybody else play during that time, but I think I've got a set of costs that brings this game back into balance, and gives more flexibility for players to choose which weapons they want to use, rather than forcing people to use certain weapons at certain times. You still can't start with an Atlatl, but you can get a few spears and come back for one.

Amount of change since last play indicated in red. Starting / respawn points set at 4.

Weapon	Cost	+ To Roll	Damage
Club	1	1*	4
Sling	3 (+1)	4	1
Spear	1 (-1)	2	3
Atlatl	4 (+1)	3	4
Bow	3 (-1)	4	2
Arrow	1	-	-
Pouch	4	-	-
Torch	2	-	-

* +1 First Hunt

Solo Playtest Two

Click to Enlarge

Ran through a 2-handed solo game to get a feel for these numbers:

Weapon	Cost	+ To Roll	Damage
Club	1	1*	4
Sling	2	4	1
Spear	2	2	3
Atlatl	3	3	4
Bow	4	4	2
Arrow	1	-	-
Pouch	4	-	-
Torch	2	-	-

* +1 First Hunt

The bow is very effective at 4/2, but the challenge is carrying around enough Arrows! It's fine if your first hunter died and you can go out equipped with a Bow and 2 Arrows, but if you went out initially with a Sling or Club, you may feel obligated to discard it.

Sling is under-priced at 2, but I'm trying to open up the starting weapon options. Maybe the limitation of burning through Arrows is enough that I could lower the price of the Bow, or raise the starting points to from 4 to 5 (but then I'd have to raise Atlatl to 4, because that I know I don't want people starting the game with.)

Solo Playtest

Click to Enlarge

Tried out some new numbers with a 3 handed solo game. I'm trying to lower costs all around now that their powers are evening out. With this setup the Bow & Arrow never came into use, and the Atlatl user came in last place.

Here are the modifications I tried:

Bow: cost 3, +4 to hit, 2 damage (no arrow included, no invulnerability to deadly animals)
Arrow: cost 2
Atlatl: cost 3
Sling: cost 2
Club: cost 1
Torch: cost 2
Pouch: cost 4

Points for Starting Equipment: 4

I'll keep working on these myself before subjecting them to my regular playtesters. Trying to keep the Bow and Atlatl out of the starting player price range. Sling probably needs to go back up to 3. I'd like to bring the Arrow cost down to 1, but to do that I'd have to bring the Bow up to 4. Although maybe this weaker Bow & Arrow is fine for first turn use, and just the Atlatl should be reserved for later game use. Would be nice to have something else that costs 1 for people to buy. Maybe boots that would give +1 or +2 movement?