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.