Belle of the Ball Updates for May 3, 2012



Made a few more updates to Belle of the Ball this morning. Apologies for the rapid iteration, but it's for a good cause! The offices of Pruvop in Durham, NC are graciously hosting a public playtest for Belle of the Ball on May 10. I'm also ordering prototypes from SuperiorPOD this week. Hopefully those will be available by Origins, so you can demo the game, too! Look for more details soon.


» Download the Current Beta Rules PDF
» Download the Print-and-Play Cards PDF
» Follow the conversation on BoardGameGeek. 
  • Removed all card text from the guest and Belle cards. Replaced with symbols. (Thanks to all who offered feedback on the rough drafts.) The rulebook now explains the powers in more detail than was manageable in the space of a card. This also allows you to stack the cards in as little space as possible while still seeing which powers each guest has.
  • Some powers are re-arranged so Lordhurtz and Richminster counties don't monopolize them as much. More powers given to Dundifax and Crawhole county.
  • "Steal 2" is replaced with a new power: Swap. This allows you to swap any two guests within your clique. See the rulebook for details.
  • Two New Belle Bonuses: Earn ten points for the fewest groups of three friends. / Earn ten points for having the most cards in your hand. These replace some of the more dull or broken bonuses that were present before.
  • You may now invite AND / OR call a guest in the same turn. In other words, you may invite a guest, call a guest or invite and call a guest. You may not call a guest then invite a guest. Essentially, this models a new arrival to the party finding an old friend.

Comments

  1. QuentinHudspethMay 3, 2012 at 9:00 AM

    We ran a quick playtest of the new* rules a few saturdays back** and I wanted to share the three comments we had.
    1) at first blush, attracting guests seems better than inviting. We only played one game, so that could even out in statistics
    2) A couple of guests have the power of stealing cards from an opponent's hand. The wording "you may choose and steal" could be interpreted as to allow the thief to see the cards before choosing. Do you mean the "choice" to be random and uninformed? If so, I suggest just "steal a random card" as the wording.
    3) Certain guests allow you to draw cards, which can bring you over the hand limit. It should be clarified that the card bonus activates before the end of turn draw-up to five cards (unless you want the guest bonus to add to the five base cards)

    That was it. We enjoyed the new rules and felt the light, social theme was indeed a better fit.

    ----------------------------------------
    * New as of when I printed them off on 4/3/12
    ** It's been a busy semester; sorry for the delay

    ReplyDelete
  2. DanielSolisMay 3, 2012 at 9:12 AM

    Woot! Thankfully all the points have been addressed in more recent prototypes. Thank *you* for taking the time to playtest!

    ReplyDelete

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