Hunt or Gather in St. Petersburg

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This summer I was lucky enough to go on Baltic Cruise. One day in St. Petersburg we visited a board game shop and met a group of people running the store, and playing Arkham Horror. Our guide mentioned that I designed games, and they were very excited. We arranged to come back the next morning and play.

I taught them the game with a little help from our translator. They were able to read the secret goals, and the game was able to overcome the small verbal language barrier. I wish we had had time to finish the game, but they got in a shipment and we had to go. I left the game with them, and hope they have played it.

Notes from Seventy-fourth Playtest

Taught a couple new players. No matter how many times I do it, always an informative process.

They liked the game, we played twice in a row.

Now that the combat system has been drastically simplified, the remaining rough edges are more apparent.

Changes to Consider

Explaining attacking would be easier if the number of attacks wasn't limited to 2, if you could just attack until either you missed, or the animal was dead. But I'm afraid the Sling will become over-powered.

Now that hunting is simpler, I think there's room for some more complexity on the gathering side. One idea would be that you can turn in one resource for no points (a free sample), in order to boost the demand for that resource up to the top value spot.

Notes from Seventy-third Playtest

What we tried:

• Bow costs 2
• New equipment art

Notes:

It's only one play with 3 players, but I think it worked well. The bow will certainly see a lot more use because at 2 points, plus 1 for an arrow, you can equip it after you die and are starting out with a new hunter.

The weapon still has limitations. It doesn't do much damage, you have to hit any of the current deadly animals twice to kill them, giving you a high chance of dying. It burns through ammunition quickly, so you have to keep buying more arrows. 

The new equipment art looks great! It really ties in with the board, and will help people learn the game by acting as labels for the score tracks.

International Tabletop Day, Playtest #72

Overview:

• Graphic design updates
• Bow cost experiment

Played with a new mix of four players, including one new player, and two who haven't played in a while. Gave an abbreviated rules teach which highlighted some graphic design updates that are needed. Also drove home for me the importance of receiving acknowledgement that players understand the end game scoring, which is simple, but vital!

Graphic Design

After seeing the dice graphics in print, it's clear that they need to be higher contrast.

As Christopher Badell (from Greater Than Games) pointed out, I need a stronger visual indication of what is Hunter equipment, and what belongs to Gatherer.

I also need to convey graphically which weapons require ammunition. The bow is obvious, but the Atlatl is less known, and unique in that spears can be used by themselves.

Bow & Arrow

Statistically the bow is a powerful weapon, it does medium damage, able to kill anything with two shots, and is one of the most accurate weapons. Logistically it is weaker, players favor the spear because the investment is less than what you get when you re-spawn after dying. So I could raise the cost of the spear, but I don't like that because it reduces player starting options. Instead I'll try lowering the cost of the bow.

Notes from Seventy-first Playtest

Beejell and Cybil

This was a playtest of the new simplified hunting system with two players who do not have a D&D background. They had struggled with the old system but were very happy with the new one.

You can also see from the photograph how the new cards fit nicely along one side of the board.

Simplified Hunting, Sample Turns

The new simplified hunting system has cut my pictorial sample turns down from 5 pages to 4. I need to find fresh players to teach the game, but I do think a 20% reduction in explanation effort is not unrealistic.

Sample Turns (1mb pdf)

Notes from Seventieth Playtest

Mini Equipment Cards shown with
Goal card, a pawn, and a meeple

This play-through was a test of the new mini equipment cards. Now in most games I'd never want to see these "Hobbit" size cards, but since they are equipment that sits on the table the whole game, it works. I actually bumped up the font size for the most used information.