Notes from Eighty-seventh Playtest

What we tried

Dying, lots of dying. We needed to test whether the game would fall apart when players aggressively gathered goals by intentionally killing their characters.

Notes

It worked! We broke the game for the first time in years. The timing couldn't be better, as I'm about to send out upgrade kits for the holidays, and a copy to a publisher.

Dan was the most aggressive, taking only a club every time he died, and getting himself killed nine times! I tried to balance getting goals with successful exploration, trading in clubs for a bow, bow for an atlatl, and finally atlatl for a pouch, successfully collecting 15 disks.

Here is the final score break down:

Dan's base score (lower of two) was 32.

Out of ten goals, the following scored:
5 points Temperate,
18 points Speaker for the Dead,
8 points Omnivore,
10 points Brave/Foolish,
8 points Wanderers,
12 points Copycat of Specialist

...for a total of 93 points.


My base score was 42.

Out of five goals, the following:
6 points Territorial,
5 points Hoarder,
12 points Gambler turned in for Specialist

...for a total of 65 points.

Conclusion

I think I can kill two birds with one stone here. By limiting the number of goals a player is allowed to collect to 5 or 6, I can also keep the Speaker for the Dead goal down to 8 or 10 points.

Notes from Eighty-sixth Playtest

Emi (playing blue) dominated her boyfriend Mondo (red)

What we tried

I took the Specialist goal for myself so that I could try a more difficult variant of the scoring:
1 point per set of 2 or more.
-or-
6 points per set of 3 or more, maximum 12 points.

I wanted to try a suicide strategy to get lots of goals, but that was incompatible with the Specialist goal, so it would have to wait for later.

Notes

The Gambler goal needed to be clarified to make it clear when to play it.

I told another playtester an opening strategy I had in mind which involved passing equipment back and forth between your characters as they went on suicide runs, but she wasn't playing seriously and didn't execute the strategy well.

Conclusion

The Specialist goal is much improved, you really have to work at it. Emi and Mondo, who have purchased their own copy of the game, enjoyed the improvements including the longer play and more powerful weapons.

Notes from Eighty-fifth Playtest

What we tried

Same rules as last play. The focus now is testing the goals, and trying to die to get more.

Notes

This was a very evenly matched high scoring two player game. We each even made the same mistakes. The final score came down to the goals, we each accomplished both of them.

Conclusion

Specialist, the goal that scores you points for multiple disks of the same type may scale up too high, and despite that doesn't seem to be a goal players pay much attention to during the game, but that concern might just be because I lost two it twice in a row.

Other than that this game is playing smoothly. Next time I do want to try dying more. I'll spend all my starting points on spears for my hunter, and send my gatherer out scouting to find the wolves.

Notes from Eighty-fourth Playtest

Kris and Ryan

What we tried

Instead of a choice between a goal or equipment when a character dies, you always get a goal and only two points for equipment.

I also removed restrictions from trading in equipment. Instead of being required to upgrade, you can now swap out for equal or lesser value.

Notes

This was Ryan's second game, but Kris and I decided to take the gloves off and play as hard as we could. But Kris died on the first turn, so it was an uphill battle. But the game is long enough now (closer to an hour than 45 minutes) that he had time to almost catch up. I triggered end game and prevented him from making a big score and was 10 points ahead. I also accomplished a large goal. Then Kris scored his goals, the first one caught him up to where I was before my goal scored, and the extra goal he had from dying on the first turn pushed him ahead. Very tight and exciting game!

Conclusion

There are goals that can now be completed which were nearly impossible before, Wolf Hunter (kill two wolves) and Crack Shot (kill two rabbits or two squirrels). This is simply because there are now three of each animal instead of two.

I'm still a little bit concerned that a "suicide strategy", getting killed intentionally to get a bunch of goals, might be successful. Back when players got a goal and three points worth of equipment that was definitely a problem (although a pretty advanced strategy), but now it's two points, and the better equipment is more expensive.

Kris, who has been playtesting this game from the beginning, through many revisions, said something great. He said that the game now has the same level of decision making as a much earlier edition of the game, but with much simpler rules. That to me is a breakthrough. Also, the experienced players trounced the score of the newer player, pretty good for a game with both input and output randomness!