Notes from Playtest One Hundred and Ten

A playtest on the JoCo Cruise with Cybil and three new players.

What We Tried

New torches cost 1.

Graphic Design Updates

Move hunt track to other side because that's where the hunter equipment is.
Put silhouettes of the pieces under the score tracks.

Notes

• Torch worked, and got something on second explore.
• View from a bluff: should be if either character has a weapon.
• Goals that say ties don't count should specify what kind of tie. 
• Suggestion to further differentiate the expensive weapons, maybe don't die against deadly with bow?
• Goals that mention trade points should say cost and have shell symbol.
• Pathfinder: clarify that it is a straight line.
• Master Scout: can't name the events in the corner.
• Copycat: replay the event (scout)

Fun was had with the language of the game (a not unintentional feature, I'd have wood in it if I could).
"Sell my meat"
"Push those nuts"
"Push the nuts below the meat"

2nd Edition Events

Atlatl & Spear

Celestial Phenomenon

Club

Cold Snap

Cornucopia

Fletcher

Fog

Illness

Potlatch Ceremony

Pouch

Rabid Beast

Rockslide

Set a Snare

Sling

Spear

Standing Stones

Strange Mushrooms

Tall Tree

Torch

Tornado

View from a Bluff

Village Gossip

Village On Fire

Wandering Trader

Notes from Playtest One Hundred and Nine

A playtest with Lester, Kris, Ryan, and Dan. I watched and took notes.

What We Tried

Gatherer scoring experiment: score more than one plant tile together. Example: score a 1 herb and a 2 herbs as 3 herbs.

New Torch

My new idea for the torch is that it would push the deadly animal to the nearest empty space, and you get to explore the space you are on again. But, you have to roll a 7 and it costs 2.

New turn summary

6 events on the board in the far corners.

Players start out with points on the board, balanced but not the same:
Player one: 3 hunt, 1 gather
Player two: 1 hunt, 3 gather
Player three: 2 hunt, 2 gather
Player four: 4 hunt, 0 gather
Player five: 0 hunt, 4 gather

Plant distribution remains the same:
4x 2 point plants of each type
2x 1 point plants of each type

Notes

• Should make score track bigger and use ticket to ride score markers.
• Spending retries to move greater distances without being forced to do an explore.
• Is being able to collect lots of retries too much? Limit 1 or 3? Conclusion: no.
• Kris scored 24 points in on turn, combining tiles is probably broken. Two other players were able to add a one point tile to another tile and salvage what would otherwise been a low scoring sale. 
• The gatherer saving throw number on the deadly animals can be confused with what the hunter needs to roll.
• Idea: move deadly to attack others or on top of other tiles.
• Make sure the rules are clear that you can move a resource up from the top space or down from the bottom and nothing happens.
• Make use of discarded event tiles? Seasons?
• 36 tiles plus 12 events is too long, length of play is too much, and hard to get home at the end.
• New equipment to try: moccasins, move up to 4/5 spaces each turn.

Events

• Lester got the Sling event while carrying only a sling, pretty funny.
• Tall tree - not useful first turn.
• Village gossip, once collected does it go face down? Fun, both had collected berries.
• Fog - moved into corner
• Celestial Event, 3 is lots of goals!
• Potlatch - Kris pulled the Kris move and returned a zero cost arrow.
• Village on fire right after potlatch is madness, but cool. Can totally nerf a couple of the goals. 
• Club - your fathers favorite club?
• View from a bluff worked, gotta be paying attention. 
• New event idea: adds a village.
• Set a snare is crazy near end game without many tiles left. Lots of info revealed.
• Rabid beast. Wording is easily misread, have to decide if to simplify. 

What's next?

Don't allow combining of plant tiles when scoring.

Plant distribution to try:
2x 3 point plants of each type
3x 2 point plants of each type
1x 1 point plants of each type

Torch
Return cost to 1.

Re-Thinking The Torch

Torch card, full bleed art prepped for printer

I've been thinking about the role the torch plays in the game, and considering making it more powerful so that it's more interesting early in the game.

With the current rules a torch is a mid to late game purchase you make only to protect a Pouch. Experienced players realize that early in the game it is better to die than to fail to collect something. New players will make the mistake of buying a torch because they think dying is bad.

My new idea for the torch is that it pushes the deadly animal to the nearest empty space, and you get to explore the space you are on again. It is still then discarded.

But, as Dan pointed out, maybe the torch shouldn't be a sure thing? If you still had to roll to survive against the deadly animal it would add another moment of dramatic tension, compared to now where you just discard it. It would also be another opportunity for risk assessment. Looking at the numbers, having it give a +2 to your role takes the odds from 50-74% to 74-91%. +3 would probably be too goo at 84-95%, although we'll see.

Cybil pointed out that having to roll a different number against different animals and then having a weapon with a bonus to that role is actually the same as the old hunting system, which was too complicated for people without a D&D background. It would better to have the torch change the number that you need to roll against any animal, rather than having to teach people to make a die roll with a modifier. I'm thinking it should either require you to roll an 8 (84%) or a 7 (91%).

The next concern, especially in a 4 or 5 player game, is that the at the start of the game the first players might grab all the torches. Two solves for this would be providing more of them in the supply, or increasing the cost to 2.

Notes from Playtest One Hundred and Eight

What we tried
This was an opportunity to teach the game to a new player who was not a regular gamer. She had at least heard of Catan, although I'm not sure if she had played.

We played with 2nd edition rules, including all the new events, and players starting out with points on the score tracks.

Since it was a learning game I shortened the play length, taking out 12 plants & animals, and 4 events (leaving 24 and 8 respectively).

Notes
I'm going to work on a demo script for teaching a few sample rounds of the game, probably with a fixed scenario. The game is very free form, there's nothing telling you where you should go, or which character you should use. I think providing some more structure for a few rounds of play would help. Our guest this time felt she fully grasped the game a few turns before the end.

The Atlatl & Spear event just needs to say how much it costs, not the discount it gives. It should end the turn.

The Cornucopia event did nothing, which would likely often be case. New idea: each player, starting with you and proceeding to the left, scores as if they had just turned in a value 1 plant of their choice. After being scored that plant value drops to the bottom.

What's next?
There's a little more work I think can be done balancing out hunter and gatherer abilities. I could try limiting the animals a hunter can carry, something like no more than 3 meat 3 hide. But, rather than start with limitations, I'm going to experiment with some improvements to the gatherer side. One thing I've included in my trial print run of 2nd edition is higher value plant tiles.

Another new idea is to allow players to combine and score multiple plant tiles at once. So if you had one nut, and two nuts, you could score it as 3 nuts, which could make as many as 12 or 15 points, depending on the number of players. Right now higher point scoring is far more common on the hunting side. Since there are 3 different kinds of plants, this won't be as common as you might think, but it might lead to new strategies.

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. 

Notes from Playtest One Hundred and Six

Playtesters: Dan, Kris, Ryan, Lester

What we tried
It had been a while since we've played, so this is a reminder of the current rules, and new experiments:

• Movement reduced to 0, 1, 2, or 3 spaces
• Explore cube lets you move again
• 4 points starting equipment (should have been 5, I remembered wrong)
• 2 points of equipment when a character dies
• Simplified hunting: if you hit you can attack again, no limits (can kill a bear with a sling, but it requires 4 hits in a row)
• One Hunger/Explore cube is collected any turn that you don't claim a space. No limit on the number you collect or spend in a turn, but you can't spend one if you have collected something.
• Encounters
  • Draw a card, do what it says, and then keep the card. At the bottom there are 2 resources. The card can be spent to move the value of the resources up by one.
  • 12 encounter disks mixed in with a bag of 24 plants & animals (this was bad, with 1 in 3 odds, Ryan kept drawing them). Made the executive decision as a non-playing observer to correct this by adding 12 more plants & animals.

Notes

• Hunger/Explore cubes should be called "Retry" cubes.
• Need to clarify/simplify when you can collect and spend a Retry cube, simple hard & fast rule like "if you claimed a space you don't get one, otherwise you do. You can spend one unless you claimed a space or an event told you to end your turn."
• Encounter disks should be called "Event" disks for simplicity.
• There were too many events, instead there should be:
  • 12 events to 36 plants & animals, or
  • 8 events and 24 plants & animals as a shorter game option.
• There should be more simple events.
• Poaching is harder now that you can't move as far, which is an improvement because poaching has always been an over-powered strategy.
• With the reduced movement, goal with no spaces touching is much harder! But it does score a lot, so might not need an adjustment.

Event Notes
In general, each event needs to be clear whether your turn ends, or you explore again.

Lost should say your turn ends and the note about ties should go at bottom.

Wandering Trader should be clear it's optional.

Village on Fire: nearest space without a claim or explore disk. Village moves, character do not. Idea: Characters in village roll or die.

View from a bluff: hunter becomes active character.

Strange mushrooms: clarify what to do with events that you draw.

What's next?

Here's a prioritized list of rule ideas that came up:

1. Spend a retry cube to re-roll the dice, or re-roll one die (have to decide which rule to try).
2. Should be able to pay for equipment from both tracks, splitting the cost of even a single piece of equipment. This would be a change to a long existing rule, but one that doesn't need to exist.
3. A goal, or simply a rule: score for extra retry cubes. Either 1 point each max 4, or 1 point for every 2.
4. Clarify the rules about if missed what a deadly animal was when it was revealed, should be able to ask what it was until the next player starts their turn.
5. Consider if trade value should be at -1 cost. I'm not super keen on this, I think the game is more interesting when people can upgrade.

Event ideas:

• Force a trade with another player for a collected disk of same type (animal or plant) with one of your characters.
• Put retry cubes on the board people can pick up. 
• Reduce movement.
• Increase movement.
• Split the village, move half the village to your spot. 
• Name what another player collected, if correct they replace on of their claim markers with one of yours on the board.
• Reshuffle market.
• +1 hunt/gather points.
• Name a space of another player that you want them to lose claim of. Fail a roll and they get to unclaimed one of yours.
• Somehow return a scored disk to the board.
• Instead of using an event for market manipulation, use it as a one shot element
• Blood moon - until the start of your next turn, all animals are deadly, explore again.
• Plants become deadly until your next turn.
• Create a dead spot on the board.
• Everybody moves one space less until your next turn. (Snowstorm)
• Bees! Nobody can move to the village until your next turn.
• Everyone needs to do something or a penalty is imposed for everyone.