Welp. It happened again.
Another idea hit me. This time it was the fault of another designer. I was at an in-person playtest a month back, and some of the feedback I got after a playthrough of Nebula was something along the lines of 'have you tried doing a tech tree?'.
.
.
.
Click.
No, I hadn't considered that. And now I'm wondering how I didn't think of it. The idea resonated with Nebula on so many levels, both mechanically and thematically. (I mean, a spaceship is just a big ball of technology, right?) The idea just fit so well that I had to so something with it.
After that session was over, I went home feeling like my head was going to explode from all the possibilities. Once home, I sat in front of my computer and started ripping a lot of the game out. Every mechanic that had always felt out of place or bolted on was fair game. Upgrade and goal tiles? Gone! Auto-repair bonuses? Bye! Tile storage? Don't need it anymore! Unlocks? Nope! Special ability tracks? Deleted! Color prisms? Poof! Generators? Scrapyard! Repair bots? Recycled!
What took the place of all of that? Tech tree time! Well, okay, maybe not a tree, exactly. I did some research on games that have a so-called 'tech tree' component to them. What I noticed is that the majority of games actually have tech tracks. It's a small but subtle difference. Mostly, tracks don't branch. Or merge. Sure, you don't have as many choices. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. In games that have a complicated tech tree, the tree can often become the main focus of the player's attention. (You want a full-blown tech tree? Look up a game called 'Progress: Evolution of Technology' sometime.) While I do need a place to put all of the mechanics I removed, this new component shouldn't overshadow the rest of the game.
So, tech tracks then. One or more of these tracks, and you move forward (up, down, whatever) on them in response to something, and each step you go gives you resources or abilities. Huh, that sounds awfully familiar. Not like my ship sheet already has tracks... ohwaitamin...
Well, whichever. So my game has even more tracks now. Any place where you gained tiles before (and lots of places where you didn't!), you gain tech points now, which you can spend to move up on these tracks. A few of the upgrade abilities made it into the tech tracks, renamed as command abilities. (Yup you're ordering your ship to do stuff now.) Since previously, each upgrade tile could be used once per turn, I needed some way to similarly limit the abilities that you get now, so now you have command points, which are required to activate the command abilities. Similarly, goal tiles, which gave end-game points, are now sitting at the tops of the tech tracks; you have to finish the track to get the extra points. And, of course, since we have the two new currencies (tech point and command points), we now have two new slide trackers (just like the one for energy) for tracking how much of each you have.
And, just in case you're curious, generators are gone, but repair-bots are still there. They aren't called that, of course, but the 'repair any space anywhere' ability is available in the game as a command ability. Yay!
"Coming soon: Tracks, the game!" Meh. The tech sheet is just another sheet of paper that you will need to play the game (alongside of the other two, the ship sheet and the ship tracks sheet), so it's not a huge component change, it just takes up a lot more table space now.
But, ya know, after some playtests (actually, a lot of playtests), I have concluded that...
<drum roll>
...the game actually works! It's odd, but when I play this game solo now, I actually feel a little enthusiastic about it. (Yeah... I've been working on this thing for almost two years now. It makes sense that my interest in it has waned a little. But this change has restored some of that.) And when I show it to other players, I'm getting mostly positive feedback about the changes. Even putting it in front of board gamers that are not typically playtesters (and definitely not designers!), I still get positive feedback. This is a good sign! Of course, everyone has some ideas on how the game can be improved, which is fine; this is still an early iteration and I'm certain it's not at its best yet. But just the fact that most everyone that plays it seems to like it, and that players are eager to suggest ways to make it better is encouraging. And that's something I need in order to have the energy to keep working on it.
More playtests incoming! The tracks need balancing, and there is a possibility that I might be able to do a branching structure while keeping it simple. We'll see. But at least I'm still making progress. :)
Oh, and I still want to do public playtesting at some point. Seems like that might be a little farther off than I wanted. Sigh.
Another idea hit me. This time it was the fault of another designer. I was at an in-person playtest a month back, and some of the feedback I got after a playthrough of Nebula was something along the lines of 'have you tried doing a tech tree?'.
.
.
.
Click.
No, I hadn't considered that. And now I'm wondering how I didn't think of it. The idea resonated with Nebula on so many levels, both mechanically and thematically. (I mean, a spaceship is just a big ball of technology, right?) The idea just fit so well that I had to so something with it.
After that session was over, I went home feeling like my head was going to explode from all the possibilities. Once home, I sat in front of my computer and started ripping a lot of the game out. Every mechanic that had always felt out of place or bolted on was fair game. Upgrade and goal tiles? Gone! Auto-repair bonuses? Bye! Tile storage? Don't need it anymore! Unlocks? Nope! Special ability tracks? Deleted! Color prisms? Poof! Generators? Scrapyard! Repair bots? Recycled!
What took the place of all of that? Tech tree time! Well, okay, maybe not a tree, exactly. I did some research on games that have a so-called 'tech tree' component to them. What I noticed is that the majority of games actually have tech tracks. It's a small but subtle difference. Mostly, tracks don't branch. Or merge. Sure, you don't have as many choices. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. In games that have a complicated tech tree, the tree can often become the main focus of the player's attention. (You want a full-blown tech tree? Look up a game called 'Progress: Evolution of Technology' sometime.) While I do need a place to put all of the mechanics I removed, this new component shouldn't overshadow the rest of the game.
So, tech tracks then. One or more of these tracks, and you move forward (up, down, whatever) on them in response to something, and each step you go gives you resources or abilities. Huh, that sounds awfully familiar. Not like my ship sheet already has tracks... ohwaitamin...
Well, whichever. So my game has even more tracks now. Any place where you gained tiles before (and lots of places where you didn't!), you gain tech points now, which you can spend to move up on these tracks. A few of the upgrade abilities made it into the tech tracks, renamed as command abilities. (Yup you're ordering your ship to do stuff now.) Since previously, each upgrade tile could be used once per turn, I needed some way to similarly limit the abilities that you get now, so now you have command points, which are required to activate the command abilities. Similarly, goal tiles, which gave end-game points, are now sitting at the tops of the tech tracks; you have to finish the track to get the extra points. And, of course, since we have the two new currencies (tech point and command points), we now have two new slide trackers (just like the one for energy) for tracking how much of each you have.
And, just in case you're curious, generators are gone, but repair-bots are still there. They aren't called that, of course, but the 'repair any space anywhere' ability is available in the game as a command ability. Yay!
"Coming soon: Tracks, the game!" Meh. The tech sheet is just another sheet of paper that you will need to play the game (alongside of the other two, the ship sheet and the ship tracks sheet), so it's not a huge component change, it just takes up a lot more table space now.
But, ya know, after some playtests (actually, a lot of playtests), I have concluded that...
<drum roll>
...the game actually works! It's odd, but when I play this game solo now, I actually feel a little enthusiastic about it. (Yeah... I've been working on this thing for almost two years now. It makes sense that my interest in it has waned a little. But this change has restored some of that.) And when I show it to other players, I'm getting mostly positive feedback about the changes. Even putting it in front of board gamers that are not typically playtesters (and definitely not designers!), I still get positive feedback. This is a good sign! Of course, everyone has some ideas on how the game can be improved, which is fine; this is still an early iteration and I'm certain it's not at its best yet. But just the fact that most everyone that plays it seems to like it, and that players are eager to suggest ways to make it better is encouraging. And that's something I need in order to have the energy to keep working on it.
More playtests incoming! The tracks need balancing, and there is a possibility that I might be able to do a branching structure while keeping it simple. We'll see. But at least I'm still making progress. :)
Oh, and I still want to do public playtesting at some point. Seems like that might be a little farther off than I wanted. Sigh.
RSS Feed