Cut, Cut, Keep: UnPub Feedback from The River Ancient



It's been a week and I've finally had a chance to digest some of the UnPub feedback from the River Ancient playtests. The notes below are from 20 feedback forms submitted. Overall takeaways?


Match Gameplay to Objectives
Every action in the game should link clearly and concretely to an objective in the game. Without this connection, you waste players' time. For example, I had players place tiles and place dice, but the dice were far more important and obvious tactically. Instead of adding more objectives to an already bloated game, I am just randomizing the tiles without player involvement.

Find Universal Comments
Every playtester is different, and will offer different types of advice, but look for any comments or suggestions they hold in common. These are the heart of any problems or features for your game. For example, my playtesters all loved the dice-placement mechanics and how traits made these placements even more tactically interesting.

Cut, Cut, Keep.
As noted below, I noticed that some decisions in the game weren't tactically interesting, so I tried to add achievements to make them more worthwhile or just adjusted my method of teaching them. However, these were simply awkward justifications for a true design problem. The best solution would've been to simply cut off the problematic mechanisms rather than keep them duct taped on. My rule of thumb: Cut two problematic areas and, if you must, keep one to refine or revise later.

So, how was the feedback to the River Ancient?

Overall Scores
Game Length: 4/5
Learning Ease: 3/5
Decisions: 4/5
Down Time: 4/5
Interactivity: 4/5
Originality: 5/5
Fun: 4/5

Was the game predictable? If yes, why?
While some feedback said "no," I still say "Yes." In the spirit of ease of learning, I kept all "Philosophy" objectives public for all players, since they were a little tricky to communicate to each player individually. Unfortunately, this made it quite clear who would have (and maintain) an early lead. Aside from this, there were also some endgame Achievements that simply could not be overtaken in the last round, essentially a "checkmate" for that Achievement.

Will you play this game again?
Yes (19), No (1). This is a good sign! Despite the many flaws, folks still seemed interested in the core gameplay.

Would you buy this game?
Yes (14), No (6). This makes more sense to me. The game is just not polished enough even for a proper pitch yet.

What would you change?
Here's where I have the most useful and actionable feedback. I tried to find some common complaints or comments amongst all the feedback forms and they all agreed that Spirits (actions) needed an overhaul. In playtests, players spent acquired tokens to summon spirits, do their indicated action, and collect the top-most spirit totem from their respective stack, earning points and Achievements along the way. This is fine on paper, but valuating the individual spirit totems, the achievements, and costs for summoning were all a tangled mess. And all that ultimately distracted from what all players universally loved about the game...

What was your favorite part of the game?
Almost universally, players loved the combination of a modular tile board with dice placement-as-auction to acquire those tiles. This isn't unexpected, as similar mechanisms have proven popular in Guilds of Cadwallon and Spyrium. Still, it is now clear to me that this should be the glowing heart of the game and anything else is a distraction. What makes the cut? I'm considering the following changes.

Cut:
  • Spirits entirely.
    This cleans up the tiles' graphic design to just be resources, without any extraneous iconography that is hard to keep track of when you have a stack of tiles in your collection. This also cuts out a step from the player's turn, makes teaching the game that much easier, and removes the hardest part of valuation.
  • Philosophy graphic design.
    Presently the philosophies are a unique arrangement of four Virtues in the game. At one end, you have the virtue that the philosophy values the least while at the other end you have the virtue that the philosophy values the most. You can spend one of the least valued Virtue to achieve that philosophy for 1 pt. Or, you can spend one of the least valued Virtue and two of the second-least valued Virtue to achieve that philosophy for 5 pts. Once a philosophy is achieved, it is turned over, so it may not be achieved again regardless of the level. Right. So all of this is fine, I just need to make these tiered expenditures more clear graphically, following Waterdeep as a model.
  • Player-controlled Terrain.
    An early playtest had three distinct phases, within which players took turns: Place tiles, then place dice, then summon spirits and achieve philosophies. This took too long and players said they didn't feel a clear tactical incentive to place tiles in a particular way. I tried to fix this by making each phase a step in an individual player's turn, so place tiles, then dice, then summon spirits. But this solved the wrong problem, the true solution was this: If I don't have any geographical objectives in the game, then geography should not be part of gameplay. Instead, I will make the map randomized each round, just a line of cards, Belle of the Ball style.
Keep:
  • Dice Placement.
    Everyone loved this element of gameplay, especially how terrain like hills or mountains could adjust bids. Having an upper threshold before winning bids cost Corruption was especially interesting, since it raised the value of low dice. Furthermore, making some tiles "Highest Bid Wins" and others "Lowest Bid Wins" made some interesting tactical nodes. Good, good, good.
  • Traits.
    Traits add special abilities to each die face. There was one problem: If you didn't roll that specific face, it made their utility pretty nil, which was a shame. I wanted to make dice placement more interesting, but I also wanted to make traits just a little unreliable. So I'm going to try a little trick from Yspahan. As you acquire traits, keep them in a line. Your lowest die faces in any roll have your leftmost ability. Second-lowest faces, have your second-leftmost ability, and so on. 
Well, that's enough to work from now. I've got quite a bit of work ahead of me!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

5 Graphic Design and Typography Tips for your Card Game

Image
Chris Farrell of Illuminating Games just wrote a thorough critique of card games setting their body text to be so small that they cannot be read at arm's length, let alone across the table. Here's an excerpt, but the whole thing is worth a read for any would-be card game designers out there. (Myself included.) Break out your copy of the base set of Dominion, and look at the Chapel. This has a text box roughly 3.5cm by 4.5cm. It's got a single line of text. That line of text is 1 (one) millimeter high. 1mm! For me, it's only clearly readable at half an arm's length even in the bright light of day. (...) Compare this to a more sane game like Glory to Rome, where the font size is 2-3 times as large (text is 2mm high, keywords 3mm and usually highlighted). I can generally read Glory to Rome cards across the table, and can certainly see the important keywords. To heap insult upon injury, not only does Glory to Rome have far more legible text than Dominion it also has
Read more

Low-High Dice Game

Image
A dice game inspired by the stock market (and playing lots of Martian Dice). Roll a bunch of dice and choose which sets to keep. Choose your strategy wisely! Stuff You Need Two-to-Six PLAYERS A PENCIL and PAPER to keep score Thirteen standard six-sided DICE How to Play The shortest player takes the first turn. On your turn, first roll all thirteen dice. Several dice will have matching results. These are called SETS. (A single die result is a set, too.) You must choose a set to keep. For example, your first roll results are 111124445555 . The sets are four 1 s, one 2 , three 4 s, and four 5 s. After keeping a set of dice, lock them up in a row. This is called the GOOD TRACK. For example,  you could keep the set of four 1 s, one 2 , three 4 s, or four 5 s . You decide to keep the four 1 s and line them up in your good track. After keeping a set, you may end your turn or re-roll the remaining unlocked dice. When you re-roll, immediately set aside any results that ar
Read more

The Thousand-Year Game Design Challenge

Image
UPDATE: The submission period has closed and here are the entries. If you're an entrant, continue sending pics or vids of people playing your game. The first step to a game lasting a thousand years is for people to play it today. UPDATE 2: And here's the winner! To support games designed for longevity – that can be learned, played and shared for hundreds of years – we offer this challenge to any game designers, artists and imaginative people who also share this desire. Challenge Create a game. The game can be of any theme or genre you desire, but there is one restriction: You're creating a "new classic," like Chess, Tag or card games. So, create a game to be enjoyed by generations of players for a thousand years. Prize $1,000 to the winning entrant, to be announced and awarded January 1, 2012. Entry Deadline Entries must be submitted before midnight July August 31st, 2011. ( Update ) Entry Guidelines Enter by posting a comment below with a link
Read more