Notes from Seventy-seventh Playtest

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What we tried

You may turn in unused equipment at the village for points which my be used immediately to buy new, more expensive, equipment.

Notes

Upgrade allowed me to take a strategy where I began with a sling and then upgraded it to a bow and arrow attempting to accomplish a Crack Shot goal. Dan was successful picking up a bow late in the game to secure the "furthest from the village" Explorer goal. At one point in the game I was losing pretty badly so I went out with an Atlatl and killed both a Wolf and a Boar, which scored 18 points in a single turn.

Conclusion

It's working really well not starting out with these weapons that are now more powerful, but being able to shift strategies later and upgrade. Being able to upgrade will also make it easier on beginning players. The decision about what to buy on your first turn is not nearly as final, you can explore various weapons throughout the game.

The game now feels like it has a beginning, middle, and end. It's always had that frantic rush at the end as players race to make one more score, or accomplish one more goal. But the rest of the game, with all the equipment more or less at your disposal from the beginning, has been more flat up until now. It makes sense, in a 45 minutes game you want to drop right into the middle of the action. Now that I'm looking at increasing it to an hour I can afford to ease into the game.

Next Steps

Goals! Should they be worth more points? Can they be more skill based? Should you get points and a goal when a character dies, or only one? Are there any we haven't thought of or tried?