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.