"Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it - wholeheartedly - and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings."
- Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
Welp... it finally happened. This post makes me a little sad, but I know that sometimes these things are necessary to facilitate the progress of a design.
For a while now, I'm been struggling to incorporate some sort of player interaction into my game. I know that Nebula is pretty low on the player interaction scale; it wasn't really meant to have much. Players put so much effort into solving the puzzle on their own boards that there isn't really much mental space left for interference by other players. However, I wanted there to at least be something.
For a while, I was trying to incorporate interaction in using the game's Goal tiles. I wanted players to pay attention to what the other players are doing, and have to make the decision as to which victory point routes they can obtain versus which they have to let other players have. I got a lot of complaints that paying attention to other player's boards is too much to do when you're already concentrating on your own. So, that idea went away.
The other mechanic that has been in the game for a while is a player-interactive version of distributing resources. This resource 'draft' took many forms over the various versions, but ultimately it boiled down to working with other players to determine who gets which colored cubes. This took many forms over various iterations. For a while, I had a modified draft system, where players would pull cubes and then take cubes from each of their neighbors. I tried a cube 'market', where players could spend Energy to buy groups of cubes, with the price depending on where in the order they were. I even tried the most basic form of draft, a simple pick-and-pass.
But, through all of these, I was constantly getting complaints about the cube draft phase. The most common one was that the cube draft, as a mechanic, was not worth the physical and mental effort required to execute it. Being able to choose which three cubes you get at the start of the turn was not a meaningful decision when you're getting another ten to fifteen cubes over the course of the turn. Also, distributing cubes in this way felt like an obtrusive break in the game's flow; everyone had to stop what they were doing to deal with this part of the game.
So, after many bits of feedback telling me that this wasn't working, it eventually sunk in that it wasn't worth trying to force it. With that hanging over me, I ended up removing the entire game phase. This makes me sad, as it's basically the last bit of player interaction in the game. (Sure, there's passing the bag of cubes around the table, and looking at what cubes other players have to try to guess what's left in the bag, but that's pretty minor.)
I've heard the 'don't be afraid to kill your darlings' advice many times. The original quote pertained to writing, but the idea applies equally well to game design. However, I never thought that it would apply to me like this. Sure, I've removed mechanics from the games I've worked on plenty of times. But this one was so ingrained into the game that it didn't even occur to me until this point that it was something I could possibly remove. It took many playtesters doing the verbal equivalent of beating me over the head with it until it finally sunk in.
With that change implemented, I tried playing the game solo a couple of times, just to see how to see how the new flow works. The game felt a little faster, but I got the odd feeling that something was missing without that phase. I assume that, because the cube draft was part of the game for so long, that I was just not used to the new game flow yet. So, I left it to the playtesters to decide if the change was positive.
Wow! Dramatic difference.
So far, I've run four playtests with the phase removed. A couple of players (especially ones that had played before) commented that the game basically felt like multiplayer solitaire with the draft gone. However, that didn't stop them from enjoying the game. A lot, actually. Players new to the game also enjoyed the game quite a bit, and didn't seem to mind the lack of player interaction.
Two very interesting things happened from this change:
But, regardless of anything else, there's no question that removing the draft was a positive change. Even if it is a mechanic that has been in the game a long time and that hurt to remove. Anything to make the game better.
Now let's just hope I don't have to cut out anything else important. :)
For a while now, I'm been struggling to incorporate some sort of player interaction into my game. I know that Nebula is pretty low on the player interaction scale; it wasn't really meant to have much. Players put so much effort into solving the puzzle on their own boards that there isn't really much mental space left for interference by other players. However, I wanted there to at least be something.
For a while, I was trying to incorporate interaction in using the game's Goal tiles. I wanted players to pay attention to what the other players are doing, and have to make the decision as to which victory point routes they can obtain versus which they have to let other players have. I got a lot of complaints that paying attention to other player's boards is too much to do when you're already concentrating on your own. So, that idea went away.
The other mechanic that has been in the game for a while is a player-interactive version of distributing resources. This resource 'draft' took many forms over the various versions, but ultimately it boiled down to working with other players to determine who gets which colored cubes. This took many forms over various iterations. For a while, I had a modified draft system, where players would pull cubes and then take cubes from each of their neighbors. I tried a cube 'market', where players could spend Energy to buy groups of cubes, with the price depending on where in the order they were. I even tried the most basic form of draft, a simple pick-and-pass.
But, through all of these, I was constantly getting complaints about the cube draft phase. The most common one was that the cube draft, as a mechanic, was not worth the physical and mental effort required to execute it. Being able to choose which three cubes you get at the start of the turn was not a meaningful decision when you're getting another ten to fifteen cubes over the course of the turn. Also, distributing cubes in this way felt like an obtrusive break in the game's flow; everyone had to stop what they were doing to deal with this part of the game.
So, after many bits of feedback telling me that this wasn't working, it eventually sunk in that it wasn't worth trying to force it. With that hanging over me, I ended up removing the entire game phase. This makes me sad, as it's basically the last bit of player interaction in the game. (Sure, there's passing the bag of cubes around the table, and looking at what cubes other players have to try to guess what's left in the bag, but that's pretty minor.)
I've heard the 'don't be afraid to kill your darlings' advice many times. The original quote pertained to writing, but the idea applies equally well to game design. However, I never thought that it would apply to me like this. Sure, I've removed mechanics from the games I've worked on plenty of times. But this one was so ingrained into the game that it didn't even occur to me until this point that it was something I could possibly remove. It took many playtesters doing the verbal equivalent of beating me over the head with it until it finally sunk in.
With that change implemented, I tried playing the game solo a couple of times, just to see how to see how the new flow works. The game felt a little faster, but I got the odd feeling that something was missing without that phase. I assume that, because the cube draft was part of the game for so long, that I was just not used to the new game flow yet. So, I left it to the playtesters to decide if the change was positive.
Wow! Dramatic difference.
So far, I've run four playtests with the phase removed. A couple of players (especially ones that had played before) commented that the game basically felt like multiplayer solitaire with the draft gone. However, that didn't stop them from enjoying the game. A lot, actually. Players new to the game also enjoyed the game quite a bit, and didn't seem to mind the lack of player interaction.
Two very interesting things happened from this change:
- The time it takes to play Nebula dropped noticeably. Whereas before it would take 45 minutes to an hour to play, now it's more like 30 to 45 minutes. Very strange, though... the draft might typically take a minute, and it occurred seven times during the game, so I have no idea why removing it would reduce the game time by 15 minutes.
- The general feel of the feedback I received from players changed quite a bit. Before this change, players would complain about the game's mechanisms; of course this includes the cube draft, but also stuff like wanting different rewards from the board, the balance of some of the tracks, and how powerful Energy should be. Now, the feedback I'm getting is more about minor concerns: the arrangement of information on the board, the game's iconography, some of the board colors, and of course, suggestions about how to add player interaction. My only guess as to why the tone of the feedback changed is that players are enjoying the game more, and so are more prone to overlooking the game's mechanical glitches? Don't know.
But, regardless of anything else, there's no question that removing the draft was a positive change. Even if it is a mechanic that has been in the game a long time and that hurt to remove. Anything to make the game better.
Now let's just hope I don't have to cut out anything else important. :)
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