Micro playtest w/ David in Teams (2/11/20)
This was the first time any of us had delivered the rules, so predictably it wasn’t a very coherent experience. David said that he enjoyed the improvisation part of the game, but was unclear what he was working towards – having the most items, or making the most interesting item. He asked if we had considered using multiple or different bidding mechanics, and pointed us in the direction of two games with interesting bidding systems: Modern Art and Q.E. (Quantitative Easing).
We resolved to study their rulesets. David also suggested making it clearer that a large part of the game would be ‘bullshitting’ – that the objects didn’t have to bear resemblance to what the player is describing.
Meeting 4 – in Teams (2/11/20)
We spent most of this meeting collaborating on a Google doc to come up with the written rules of the current version, so that when we playtested later we’d have something concrete to reference. Placing everything, in order, on a single page was a clarifying process – we could see when it would be important to introduce goals and rules, and where we could leave information for later. We also found the process of defining a language for the game very useful, helping us to define the tone and ‘weight’ of the ruleset (we wanted to keep things light!).
Playtest 1 – in Teams with Valeria, Trini, Arthur (2/11/20)
Valeria, Trini and Arthur kindly agreed to playtest our game. We met on Teams, and I was elected to explain the rules, which I did. Myself, Jacky and Shiquan then went off-camera and observed the group playing.
General Impressions:
The group took to the game quickly, and required little supervision to actually play it. Lots of laughter and smiles, very imaginative objects.
Feedback from the group:
- Lots of positive feedback on the improvisation/role-playing aspects. Group felt like they learned a lot about each other too.
- It was not obvious to the players how much their items would end up being worth, so some players did not bid when they could, or when it was critical for them to get an item.
- Some players were motivated by getting as many items as they could, others by ‘saving money’.
- The motivation for bidding high for an item was based on how much each player ‘liked’ the sound of it, or whether it was ‘interesting’. Players made up personal rules as to what they would or wouldn’t buy.
- The final valuation, while initially a little confusing, was defined as ‘fun’ and reminiscent of ‘luck-based’ gacha games.
- Players struggled to track their own money as well as which items they had acquired, and play had to be stopped so I could remind players of who had what (I was keeping track).
Observations and reflections:
- The temptation to treat this as solely a roleplaying exercise was very strong; players spent a lot of time asking questions about items, which greatly affected the focus and length of the game. The playtesters played for about 45 minutes, which was 3 times as long as myself, Jacky and Shiquan take to play the game.
- Bidding turned more into haggling, which also slowed down proceedings
- We observed an extreme slowdown in pace as the players learned the ropes of the ‘finger RNG’ system.
- Arthur did not have a webcam, but played the game well enough on voice-chat. This may have affected the ease with which the group ran the bidding.
While watching the game, we talked in a private chat about immediate changes we could make to the instructions. Some ideas included:
- All players are generalists as well as experts, and know the broad value of items (so nobody needs to ‘convinced’ of an item’s status as an antique).
- Items are valued not for what they can do (any special powers), but for the value they would bring to someone’s collection (is the idea of a collection important to introduce?).
- Players also need to be briefed on how to bid at an auction (always up, never down).
- A theme that all items (or all items within a certain round) might help, but we worried that this will decrease the freedom players feel.
Meeting 5 – in Teams (4/11/20)
We didn’t have a lot of time in this meeting, as we had to playtest for Arthur, Valeria and Trini’s group afterwards, so we resolved to process the notes from yesterday’s playtest and come up with an action plan for next week.
From the playtest we were able to identify the following areas to think about and later work on:
- Clearer rules for the beginning of the game, especially regarding what we want the players to be chiefly *doing* (see our reflections on instructions above).
- A solve for the slowdown at the end of the game. Looking at the order of play seemed like a wise choice.
- A way to make bidding consistently exciting.
- A way to make the improvisations and objects feel meaningful.
- A way to decrease the amount of mental space needed to play the game – this might mean fewer rounds, fewer objects to keep track of, a different points-scoring system…
- A more compelling / clearer win condition: there needs to be more connection between players introducing items, bidding for them, and actually winning the game. The current ending feels almost apropos of nothing – too random!
Before we left to playtest the other group’s game, we recorded ourselves playing through:
We still felt positive about the state of the game – it remained fun to play, but needed a bit of streamlining and focusing in order to be a smooth and consistent experience.
All told, the group felt confident that with a few more playthroughs next week, we would have something approaching a final product, and then we could start finessing and balancing.