Feedback session (14/12/2020):
During the feedback session I shared the results from the playtest, and also some of my concerns re: the balancing. David reassured me that the game was already in a submittable state, and that some of these balancing questions could happily be solved if I wanted to work further on it after hand-in. I still felt like I could get a cleaner flow out of the game though, and resolved to playtest it further.
Notes from playtesting (Week 4):
I played the game online with my partner and friends over a few afternoons. Lots of positive comments, but I observed the following:
- Once players have the basic rules down, the ‘correct’ way to play is to always claim stacks as soon as they become available – winning a stack is so valuable, as it both sheds your cards and jams up other players.
- As a game for two players it’s a little dry – I’d like for there to be more surprise and strategy, as in UNO…
- There’s definitely potential for play to continue more or less infinitely, especially between three or more players. I need to work out a way of finishing play, but the size of deck doesn’t really combine well with discarding entire stacks (if a stack of 6 is discarded, that’s only 12 cards to play with, and if the objective is to make the biggest stack, well, anyone who makes a stack of 7 has basically already won).
Questions going forwards:
At the end of four weeks of development, I’m still uncertain as to the rhythm of play, both on a turn-by-turn level and over a whole game. The game seems either too easy or too difficult to win, and the rhythm of the rounds seems too predictable. I think the game as a whole is submittable, but I’d like to come down on a much cleaner direction, either before or after hand-in. Luckily, there is a week of tuition before the hand-in, so I plan on making some different versions of the game to playtest for then.
There are a few directions I think I can go in:
- Increase the speed and intensity of the game – like Spit or Shithead, the objective is to play fast and hard.
- Add an additional stack, maybe one per player – this would increase the memory load, which might be a good or a bad thing for difficulty.
- Remove the SNAP! mechanic, and rebuild it as a turn-based game. This would enable the cards to each have different abilities – maybe ‘casting’ a pickles card makes someone read the claimed stack backwards?
- Remove the shedding mechanic entirely, make the goal about getting either:
- The tallest stack, or
- The most stacks in a time limit.
The game should also be redesigned to work in black-and-white – currently I’m using colours to communicate whether a card has a veggie, a sauce, or bacon on it, but most print-and-play players will likely be printing monochrome. I’ll need to come up with some symbols, or better illustrations (my designs are still very placeholder-y).
Lots of work still to do!