Notes from Playtest One Hundred and Seven

Playtesters: Cybil and Beejell

What we tried

• Movement reduced to 0, 1, 2, or 3 spaces
• 4 points starting equipment (this was a setup mistake last time, but I'm sticking with in)
• 2 points of equipment when a character dies
• Bow costs 5, Atlatl 4
• Equipment can be paid for from either or both tracks.
• Retry cubes are collected if you explore and didn't get to claim a space, whether you fail or die.
• Hunter can use retry cubes to re-roll attacks.

Notes

• Retry cubes introduce a strategic approach to hunting deadly animals that have been revealed by another player. You can wait until you have one before hunting it.
• The market manipulation action (needs a better name) that you can invoke by turning in an event card that you found earlier, evolved in the middle of play. From that discussion I did not agree with the idea that a resource pushed beyond the top value in the village should wrap to the bottom. But the rule we did change was allowing a resource to be moved either up or down. This gives players much more control of the market.
• The "village value track" should just be called the "marketplace".
• Idea: retry tokens could score points, or get equipment.
• Most events should let you explore again. This is twice in a row the least experienced player drew the most event tiles.
• Component mistake! Two of the events that should have been able to manipulate the value of berries had herbs instead, the ones paired with meat and with hide.

Event Notes and Ideas
View from a Bluff worked!
Injured would be more clear if it sayd "not carrying anything".
Lost you should roll to see how far you move.
Idea: Turn one market tile face down until until somebody scores again.
Idea: Move something in the market up to top.
Idea: Market manipulation events give you something different, like +1 movement.
Idea: Move one character back to village.

What's next?

After this playtest I did a complete overhaul of all the events. The each were each updated to clearly state whether your turn continues or ends. I worked with Cybil on the flavor text and interactivity level of every events. It should now be rare that an event can be drawn and you escape it with nothing good or bad happening. More events were added, most of the new ones are much simpler, like gain a piece of equipment. I added 10 more events with only a single resource icon.

The big next thing is the 2nd edition board, with hex spaces. The text of all the goals was updated since orthogonal vs. diagonal is no longer a concern.

The new board is also irregularly shaped. I want to try starting the game with face down events in the far corners of the board.

I'm also going to try having players start the game with points on the board that may optionally be spent on equipment. This will simplify teaching the game, because the first turn will be no different than any other. Players first turn choices will be easier too, since they will not be pressured to spend all their starting points.