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.