Colored and Shaded Art Preview

by Bob Garvin

Notes from Fortieth Playtest

Dan & Ashley. Well, mostly just Ashley,
you see Dan every playtest.

A teaching game with Dan and his girlfriend Ashley. She may have just learned this game, but she's no newbie gamer. In fact, she won with what I think is the highest single score I've seen in this game, 40 points. And that includes the games we played when equipment was free.

Notes
The cards will need text. Current prototypes are just numbers and sketches. But I want to keep it to just a sentence or two. I think the Torch can be stripped down to just fending off animals. It's still worth the 2 points, and won't require as much explanation.

40 points!

Rules We Tried
I taught the new scouting rules, but they didn't come into play. I'll keep them a round for a few more playtests, I think they're going to be important as a catch-up mechanism.

Notes from Thirty-ninth Playtest

A tricky playtest with Cybil and her mom. Not sure how they have such a hard time with this game. Between brazenly attacking a known wolf while carrying two kills (and dying of course), failing to hit a deer with a bow (95% odds) twice, and proceeding to gather all 4 of the same plant, there's not much I can do to adjust the odds against those events.

But, that said, this game does have a runaway loser problem. Once you've failed a couple rolls, run out of arrows or spears, and have to walk home empty handed it's really hard to catch up.

To Try Next
The scouting rules are on the chopping block. I haven't taught them the last two times I've explained the game. I want to give them one more shot, with enough power to really act as a catch-up mechanism.

I'm going to try a version of scouting that I had previously dismissed as too powerful: A hunter or gatherer, having failed to collect any tiles, may declare that they wish to scout and move to the village. During that move they may explore any empty spaces they land on, always keeping the tile secret. No tiles may be collected, but the character is immune to deadly animals and does not reveal them.

Cards with Sketches, No Text

Notes from Thirty-eighth Playtest

Ben & Dan

Three player game with Dan and a new player, Ben. Dan had the worst run of gathering luck I've seen, uncovering only animals, many of them deadly. Ben didn't have any trouble learning the rules, taught quickly. Left the follow-on attack rules, saving them for when there was a wounded animal. Left out the scouting rules entirely, they probably won't make the next draft.

Check out Dan's row
of animals he gathered

Today's Experiment
Used the numbers from my cost work from the last couple weeks, they open up a lot of possibilities. I tried out opening with a Torch and two Arrows, so I could safely gather something for enough points to get a Bow. Have to see what else players come up with.

Solo Playtest Three

It's take a couple weeks, and I haven't let anybody else play during that time, but I think I've got a set of costs that brings this game back into balance, and gives more flexibility for players to choose which weapons they want to use, rather than forcing people to use certain weapons at certain times. You still can't start with an Atlatl, but you can get a few spears and come back for one.

Amount of change since last play indicated in red. Starting / respawn points set at 4.

Weapon	Cost	+ To Roll	Damage
Club	1	1*	4
Sling	3 (+1)	4	1
Spear	1 (-1)	2	3
Atlatl	4 (+1)	3	4
Bow	3 (-1)	4	2
Arrow	1	-	-
Pouch	4	-	-
Torch	2	-	-

* +1 First Hunt

Solo Playtest Two

Click to Enlarge

Ran through a 2-handed solo game to get a feel for these numbers:

Weapon	Cost	+ To Roll	Damage
Club	1	1*	4
Sling	2	4	1
Spear	2	2	3
Atlatl	3	3	4
Bow	4	4	2
Arrow	1	-	-
Pouch	4	-	-
Torch	2	-	-

* +1 First Hunt

The bow is very effective at 4/2, but the challenge is carrying around enough Arrows! It's fine if your first hunter died and you can go out equipped with a Bow and 2 Arrows, but if you went out initially with a Sling or Club, you may feel obligated to discard it.

Sling is under-priced at 2, but I'm trying to open up the starting weapon options. Maybe the limitation of burning through Arrows is enough that I could lower the price of the Bow, or raise the starting points to from 4 to 5 (but then I'd have to raise Atlatl to 4, because that I know I don't want people starting the game with.)