Today, our group as a collective had a rough play-test of the formal elements of our game. Over the last week we have had one other playtest from outside testers - which gave us a good idea that our basic game premise worked. However, we discovered that the game was unbalanced via the inclusion of too many demolition and steal squares. Furthermore our board became too cluttered with build icons, having squares allocated to various pieces. This had led to a design overhaul in the placement and implications of some of the rules.
Now our design involves two sets of Cards: Build and Star (or ''Miscalculation'') - each with their own icon on the board. The Demolition and steal rules were placed into the Miscalculation cards also (they each featured once in a set of 32 cards so are rare). These were the positive outcomes to having such a playtest early in the iterative process. Now it was time to refine these elements.
Today's playtest was played within the design team. Jack was the ''Banker'' (a role that could be allocated to any of the 4 playing - we just did this for efficiency and another perspective), Jess, Steven, Robert and Josh played the game, while i observed the play through (making brief notes).
The game took a little while to set up. This was not due to too many pieces but rather as some pieces had to be hastily constructed. These were:
The playing counters
And the ''dice'' (for which we wrote numbers on some paper. Then each turn a player would randomly select a piece of paper and whatever number was their subsequent dice roll). We will be using a dice for our final game.
Furthermore we had to use the 'build cards' as the robot for two of the players. This was unfortunate, however we have decided for some members of the team to build two other robots (so that there were variants for aesthetic appeal).
The game got underway at 12:10pm and from the first signs of play, it seemed to be playing well. One problem appeared two minutes into gameplay. This was that the ‘randomised’ build cards could have the potential to slow down play –especially since the rules specified that the build had to run from bottom to top (legs then torso, etc.) We changed this mid play so that a player could simply pick up whichever piece was needed straight from a build squares.
Having been reading ‘Games Design Workshop: A playcentric guide to making games’, it had become apparent about the importance of both balance of play and currency systems in a game; something I considered heavily when observing the play session. Our monetary system ran smoothly – with the 300 Credits every game revolution dispersing a reliable stream of cash to players. This was evened out heavily by the purchasing of parts (each part being 500 credits) and the Miscalculation cards – which had a 60/40 split to negatives (ranging from Miss a Turn to 500 credit deductions). Not once during play were all players struggling for money, but yet it became apparent that we had captured the ‘power struggle’ aspect of games such as Monopoly. One player in particular had been hit financially by the Miscalculation cards, often struggling for money in the early stages of the game. I feared a little at this point that more positive cards would have to be slotted into the deck.
One red flag incident was the ‘Betrayal card’. Betrayal targets all players and removes 400 credits. This was met with instant unhappiness from all players as it reduced almost all of them to no funds. Due to this it was ‘Removed from play’ and will not feature in any other playtests unless I review just how much money it takes from all players (100 credits is a possibility).
The Miscalculation cards took 45 minutes to reach fully play through, before re reading old cards. At this point they were shuffled and play continued. This wasn’t a bad sign as many games have several duplicate cards, so for them to last 45 minutes was not bad. Furthermore we expect normal players to use common sense to shuffle the deck – as this is not something normally included into design rules.
At this point of play the game had rewarded the player who was struggling early game and he was vying for the winning pieces with the current leader – causing me to realise that the early observation; that the game had the power struggle feel of monopoly, was not entirely incorrect as the balance of play had switched several times. Jess had gotten an early start, getting two legs early in play. Steven and Robert had one, while Josh until mid-game had no pieces. In the closing stages of play new leader Steven had gotten one arm, a torso and both legs. Josh had gotten up to the torso stage, while Robert and Jess were still at the leg stage via a bad run of the Miscalculation cards.
At the end of play Steven had won and we officially finished the game at 1.15pm. This meant our game had a running time of 1 hour 5 minutes. This we agreed was a good running time, which could have extended either way depending on play.
Speaking to Josh afterwards, he said that the game was ‘both infuriating and good’ and he remarked upon the sudden upturn of his fortunes mid game, thinking that that was a sign that the game was moving in the right direction.
After the game, as a team we spoke about a few aspects – namely the 2 needed Robots and the playing pieces. The playing pieces, Josh suggested, could be a character stood up on some kind of slit based plastic base. My own view was that it should be simple and looking at the board, whilst considering the theme, I pitched the idea that the playing pieces should be small spanners – of different colours. This was because counters are often simple and this would also be easier to produce the most effective prototype of. Jess agreed and put herself forward to make them. This was met with approval from the team.
As for the Robots, both Steven and Josh put themselves forward to make them – while Jess also expressed willing should the team wish, to remake her current robot design, but alter it 4 times for each team. Furthermore, Dom is said to be making another prototype so we shall discuss this further tomorrow.
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