Another day, another post. It feels like this is a continuation of the last post I made. Three topics to touch on here... Sky Pirates, Manaforge, and Dice Tower.
Sky Pirates
Since my last post, I finally had the chance to go through all of the feedback forms that people filled out. Each Sky Pirates playtester got a feedback form. The front of the form is filled with 'on a scale of 1-5, how much did you like game element xyz?' questions, while the back has a few somewhat vague, open answer questions. Nobody was forced to fill any or all of it out, of course, but I'm glad that they did. Here are the trends I noticed:
Overall, the game was very well received. I'd say there was an average of a 4 out of 5 rating for the general 'did you like this game?' question. Many 5s and 4s, a couple of 3s and one 2. Great to hear that I'm doing something right. :)
Most of the other questions did very well. Lots of high marks all around. However, there was one question that stood out as a sore spot. The question of
"Was this game interesting even during other players' turns?" often was rated the lowest out of all of them. This tells me that there isn't enough to keep the players occupied when it's not their turn. I hope that won't be too much of a problem, considering that it is meant to be a 20-30 minute game, so the turns are fast; even if a player becomes disengaged, they won't stay that way for long. Still, it's something I have to keep an eye out for as I'm making game tweaks.
As for the free-response answers, again I got several 'great games' compliments on paper. Great ego boost! The positive answers praised the game's balance and mechanics. The negative answers focused on smaller details; some of the icons looked similar, a keyword effect here or there was difficult to understand, some card effects felt underwhelming or useless. Several bits of actionable feedback in there; I'm too close to the game so I don't always notice the rough spots, so it's nice to have them pointed out in a way that I can understand and address.
With all that under my belt, I have my list of stuff I need to fix now. I haven't started on it yet; I've been working on Manaforge plus dealing with various chores that fall under the vague 'running a business' umbrella. It is on my to-do list though, so I will eventually get to it.
Manaforge
Speaking of Manaforge, I was finally able to get another iteration out. Here's the rundown:
Result 5: This still didn't quite work. After several design attempts I settled on large monolithic artifact 'cards' that might have better been described as player boards. Each artifact has a prerequisite condition that you must meet before you can take it (something like 'have three fire items'), and you can only ever get one artifact over the course of the game. Once you have it, you can upgrade it by doing various tasks, anything from spending mana or gems to having certain symbols on your dice or exhausting specific cards. Each time you upgrade the artifact, you get a choice of one of two new abilities, both printed right on the board. Once you choose one ability, you are locked out of the other, and each upgrade tier has a different pair of abilities to choose from. I like the idea that you are working on your 'masterpiece' as you play, and you can customize what it does so that the benefits it gives fit into your engine.
The cards worked more or less as intended, and they did add some decent decisions to the game. (Make a beeline for the artifact early, or pick one up later? Focus on the point-generating powers or pick ones that give resources?) It didn't quite make the game more fun, though maybe there's a spark in there? Or I'm just imagining it; after burning through a bunch of many ideas, I really want something to click into place. The idea of building something up over the course of the game is good. The idea of customizing what you're building is also good, but this iteration didn't go far enough; perhaps something less monolithic and more modular is in order? I got some good ideas from the people helping me test so at least I have a path forward.
As before, the idea that clicked the best was the 'customer' cards. Aside from making the rewards more appealing, I added a second use for the cards. Now, when you fulfill the last step of a customer's request, you take the customer card (now a 'loyal customer') instead of discarding it. Each customer card now has 'roll' symbols printed on it that let you reroll one die of a specific element one time. (Discard the card when you use the ability.) Used dice rerolled in this manner become available to be spent. I think this was a major step forward, giving these cards a second purpose. My friends suggested, and I agree, that more bonuses and more varied types of bonuses would do well on these cards (discard to gain mana, temporary extra dice, card recharges, etc.). In addition, the artifacts could be more closely tied to the customers, maybe expend customer cards to substitute for some resource that you need to construct the next piece of your artifact.
Iteration 5.5: Okay, customers good, artifacts bad, though I think this last iteration was the closest so far. Two things to do here. The first is to supercharge the customer cards. Focus more on what they can do once you have them in your possession. Maybe get rid of the multi-step track (yay less fiddly bits) and just make them 'pay x, get card'. Tie them into more game mechanics and see if anything explodes.
The second thing is to break the artifacts apart. Rather than all of the artifact info being on one card, I think I need a large 'core' card that serves as the artifact's base (representing it's basic power/affinity/concept/shape), and a deck of 'module' cards that add various modifiers (representing choice of materials, enchantments, special craftsmanship, whatever). I like the structure I came up with on the large cards (bottom tier to top was: core, shape, material, primary special power, power modifier, epic status), so I think I want to try to keep that same concept of slot 'types' on the artifact. I don't want a gajillion new decks of cards, tho, so I'm going to have to come up with some multi-use cards that have different powers for different slots. Gonna take some thought to make it all balance out.
Dice Tower
In case you've been living under a rock, the 2019 Dice Tower Convention is less than a month away. This is probably my favorite convention, especially since it's close to home and it's difficult to fit travelling into my schedule. I get to reconnect with a lot of friends that I rarely see, meet new people, try out new games, and just bask in the energy of a thousand gamers having tons of fun. I expect I will still be doing some Manaforge demoing this year, but not nearly as much as before. I want to play something this time around. (I don't regularly get much actual gaming time, so this is a major opportunity to do some catching up, see what's currently hot.) We'll see what happens this time. As always, if you want me to be somewhere to teach Manaforge, feel free to contact me; I will make time in my schedule.
That's it for now. Back to the drawing board again, but at least right now I have a solid direction to go in. :)
Sky Pirates
Since my last post, I finally had the chance to go through all of the feedback forms that people filled out. Each Sky Pirates playtester got a feedback form. The front of the form is filled with 'on a scale of 1-5, how much did you like game element xyz?' questions, while the back has a few somewhat vague, open answer questions. Nobody was forced to fill any or all of it out, of course, but I'm glad that they did. Here are the trends I noticed:
Overall, the game was very well received. I'd say there was an average of a 4 out of 5 rating for the general 'did you like this game?' question. Many 5s and 4s, a couple of 3s and one 2. Great to hear that I'm doing something right. :)
Most of the other questions did very well. Lots of high marks all around. However, there was one question that stood out as a sore spot. The question of
"Was this game interesting even during other players' turns?" often was rated the lowest out of all of them. This tells me that there isn't enough to keep the players occupied when it's not their turn. I hope that won't be too much of a problem, considering that it is meant to be a 20-30 minute game, so the turns are fast; even if a player becomes disengaged, they won't stay that way for long. Still, it's something I have to keep an eye out for as I'm making game tweaks.
As for the free-response answers, again I got several 'great games' compliments on paper. Great ego boost! The positive answers praised the game's balance and mechanics. The negative answers focused on smaller details; some of the icons looked similar, a keyword effect here or there was difficult to understand, some card effects felt underwhelming or useless. Several bits of actionable feedback in there; I'm too close to the game so I don't always notice the rough spots, so it's nice to have them pointed out in a way that I can understand and address.
With all that under my belt, I have my list of stuff I need to fix now. I haven't started on it yet; I've been working on Manaforge plus dealing with various chores that fall under the vague 'running a business' umbrella. It is on my to-do list though, so I will eventually get to it.
Manaforge
Speaking of Manaforge, I was finally able to get another iteration out. Here's the rundown:
Result 5: This still didn't quite work. After several design attempts I settled on large monolithic artifact 'cards' that might have better been described as player boards. Each artifact has a prerequisite condition that you must meet before you can take it (something like 'have three fire items'), and you can only ever get one artifact over the course of the game. Once you have it, you can upgrade it by doing various tasks, anything from spending mana or gems to having certain symbols on your dice or exhausting specific cards. Each time you upgrade the artifact, you get a choice of one of two new abilities, both printed right on the board. Once you choose one ability, you are locked out of the other, and each upgrade tier has a different pair of abilities to choose from. I like the idea that you are working on your 'masterpiece' as you play, and you can customize what it does so that the benefits it gives fit into your engine.
The cards worked more or less as intended, and they did add some decent decisions to the game. (Make a beeline for the artifact early, or pick one up later? Focus on the point-generating powers or pick ones that give resources?) It didn't quite make the game more fun, though maybe there's a spark in there? Or I'm just imagining it; after burning through a bunch of many ideas, I really want something to click into place. The idea of building something up over the course of the game is good. The idea of customizing what you're building is also good, but this iteration didn't go far enough; perhaps something less monolithic and more modular is in order? I got some good ideas from the people helping me test so at least I have a path forward.
As before, the idea that clicked the best was the 'customer' cards. Aside from making the rewards more appealing, I added a second use for the cards. Now, when you fulfill the last step of a customer's request, you take the customer card (now a 'loyal customer') instead of discarding it. Each customer card now has 'roll' symbols printed on it that let you reroll one die of a specific element one time. (Discard the card when you use the ability.) Used dice rerolled in this manner become available to be spent. I think this was a major step forward, giving these cards a second purpose. My friends suggested, and I agree, that more bonuses and more varied types of bonuses would do well on these cards (discard to gain mana, temporary extra dice, card recharges, etc.). In addition, the artifacts could be more closely tied to the customers, maybe expend customer cards to substitute for some resource that you need to construct the next piece of your artifact.
Iteration 5.5: Okay, customers good, artifacts bad, though I think this last iteration was the closest so far. Two things to do here. The first is to supercharge the customer cards. Focus more on what they can do once you have them in your possession. Maybe get rid of the multi-step track (yay less fiddly bits) and just make them 'pay x, get card'. Tie them into more game mechanics and see if anything explodes.
The second thing is to break the artifacts apart. Rather than all of the artifact info being on one card, I think I need a large 'core' card that serves as the artifact's base (representing it's basic power/affinity/concept/shape), and a deck of 'module' cards that add various modifiers (representing choice of materials, enchantments, special craftsmanship, whatever). I like the structure I came up with on the large cards (bottom tier to top was: core, shape, material, primary special power, power modifier, epic status), so I think I want to try to keep that same concept of slot 'types' on the artifact. I don't want a gajillion new decks of cards, tho, so I'm going to have to come up with some multi-use cards that have different powers for different slots. Gonna take some thought to make it all balance out.
Dice Tower
In case you've been living under a rock, the 2019 Dice Tower Convention is less than a month away. This is probably my favorite convention, especially since it's close to home and it's difficult to fit travelling into my schedule. I get to reconnect with a lot of friends that I rarely see, meet new people, try out new games, and just bask in the energy of a thousand gamers having tons of fun. I expect I will still be doing some Manaforge demoing this year, but not nearly as much as before. I want to play something this time around. (I don't regularly get much actual gaming time, so this is a major opportunity to do some catching up, see what's currently hot.) We'll see what happens this time. As always, if you want me to be somewhere to teach Manaforge, feel free to contact me; I will make time in my schedule.
That's it for now. Back to the drawing board again, but at least right now I have a solid direction to go in. :)
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