Here are the playtests I ran:
One Hundred and Sixteen
Below I'll summarize all the changes that I'll be making and experiments I'll be running based on notes taken on the ship.
Below I'll summarize all the changes that I'll be making and experiments I'll be running based on notes taken on the ship.
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| While on ship we made pockets to stop the Marketplace mat from sliding. |
Graphic Design / UX Notes
- Exploration tiles should have a white background for maximum legibility at their small size. Deadly animals will have red numbers and icons.
- Deadly animals: instead of fangs, have gathered meeple icon with the number to indicate what the number is for (gatherer's escape roll).
- Integrate the Marketplace mat with the main board (illustration below).
- Move hunt track to other side because that's where the hunter equipment is.
- Make the score tracks larger so that we can use Ticket to Ride style flat wooden scoring disks.
- Put silhouettes of the pieces under the score tracks.
- Player aids should have red/green sides with graphics from the score tracks to further connect those concepts.
- Make an area on the board for discard event tiles.
- Make spaces on the board for the Seasons cards.
- The six events that go on the board should have a tone on tone green event icon on the back.
- Split colors on the box art?
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| This is my idea for how to eliminate the separate Marketplace mat and still have different values for 4-5 players than with 2-3 players |
Experiments
- Animals update: rabbit becomes two hide zero meat, wild turkey replaces squirrel and is two meat zero hide.
- Goals and benefits associated with each season: 4 possibilities for each of the four seasons. For example, re-spawning gets you X points only during Spring, Everyone gets a goal at the beginning/end/first-event of the Summer. Have to think of shared goals that don't just reward the player who is ahead, if anything they should be catch-up mechanisms.
- Time to revisit the secret goals! Make sure all goals can be actively worked towards. Add more goals that care about placement.
- Improved or cheaper sling, maybe even make sling do 2 damage, bow & arrow 1. If bow does less damage, it should cost 4, pouch should cost 3, and players start with 3 or fewer points. If sling does more damage, spear is looking weaker, so spear could change so that it's only discarded when you miss (or hit?). Probably better to not have the sling do more damage which makes it clearly better than club or spear, but just lower the cost.
- New gatherer equipment: moccasins, cost 2 move 4/5 spaces
- More bluffing opportunities. Empty/free exploration tiles that could be claimed immediately or left there would add more bluffing. Drawing an event card could be optional, just leave it there and use/collect a retry.
- Long range weapons: one option for incentivizing the more expensive weapons in 4-5 player games would be to make characters using the AtlAtl, Bow, and Sling immune to deadly animals. Since these weapons already have really good odds, it wouldn't be a huge functional change to the game. Maybe less exciting though.
- Tornado: isn't working as intended, try a new way of determining the direction it takes you.
- Include an odds table in the back of the rules, share it with the playtesters at the start of the game.
- Retry: re-roll one die instead of all three.
- Pick your goal when you die, but don't keep it until you use that character again.
- Everyone starts with a sling and no points.
- Change the number of spaces moved depending on the number of players.
Corrections
- Allow market manipulation to drop a resource to the bottom. Moving it to the top is too powerful, wrapping it around only from the topmost space to the bottom is more limiting and makes less sense.
- Market manipulation should be usable at any time during that turn, even split up before two sales, or in between selling of meat and hide.
- The staggered starting points didn't work out, it was too complicated for little gain. Everyone will start with 2 points on each track. If points for equipment go down I could try basing the total starting points on the number of players. It would probably be either one point per player, or one less than that.
- Verify that Speaker for the Dead and Survivor note goals that the goals don't have to be scored.
- Celestial phenomenon: get rid of the "of all 3 match"
- View from a bluff has a typo "to not" should be "do not"
- View from a bluff: should be if either character has a weapon.
- Territorial don't say "on the sides"
- Goals that say ties don't count should specify what kind of tie.
- Pathfinder: clarify that it is a straight line.
- Master Scout: can't name the events in the corner.
- Copycat: clarify that you need to see if you could accomplish the goal you are copying.
- Reconsider number of points for the goal that requires hoarding equipment.
- Rules clarification: you can re-roll a successful roll with a retry.
- Tall Tree: clarify what the correct character/space means.
- Wandering Trader: clarify if can manipulate market with events.
- Atlatl Event: too powerful early game, should not include the option of buying a spear.
- Temperance - score some points if they are close but not the same.
- Haggler should be 3 points.
- Wolf Master should score points for one wolf.
- Brave should also give scaled points.
- Fog should require that you be moved to an empty space. The way it's worded now the player moving the character should always move you to a space with something on it, but rarely do because the full text of the card is not read aloud.
- Snare should not be able to draw past the current season. Lots of edge cases and clarifications required with this one, might have to lose it.
- Potlatch: FAQ that you can discard equipment.
- Tall tree: complicated.
- Strange mushrooms: clarify that you draw them one at a time.
- Rabid beast: should say "end of" your following turn.
- FAQ: can two characters who are maxed out on equipment exchange?
- Goals that mention "trade points" should say "cost" instead and have shell symbol.
JoCo Cruise 2018 Playtesters
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