Hi
This weekend we had our monthly test session. This time it was my own games that where tested (and several other published games). I had a lot of catching up to do after this autumn with only one game on the menu (the Z-man monster game).
Rats in the sewer
A board game where you build 3D (2.5D) sewer and with your rats tries to concur as much as possible. There was a lot of interaction, backstabbing and planning (not so much randomness).
The game was for 3-4 players and took around 1 hour to complete.
This was the first test for the game and it had the best score during this session. The only thing I need to do is changing some components (make the overview of the game a little bit better). It's time to complete the rules.
Donkey road
You follow a path with your donkey and buy and sell gods on the road. The road is build with tiles during the movement and you don’t know what's in front of you.
This game was for 3-5 players and took 1 hour to complete.
First test of the game and the basic of the game where OK. There was a lot of problems and the game become to random. The basic of the game where OK, but I had streamline and removed too much from the game (tried to keep it simple). It become to random and the choices where limited.
Same redesign is necessary and I got several ideas that I want to try.
Holliday war
A card game where you use the mythical Holliday creatures as units (Santa, Easter bunny with his Honey bunnies, and so on). With lies, seduction, stealing and hard battles, you will try to take over the holidays. A lot of non serious fiction as using Santa's elf command team for frontal attacks, hide your units inside a Trojan bonnie and move them into enemy territory or send in your Trick or treat team to make the opponents to give you his objects.
This is a card game for 2-5 players and it took 1.5 hours too complete.
For the forth test and still it don’t work. I have several of problems with run away leader, player downtime and one player that were removed from the game. On top of that, the game was not so funny to play (I feel that it could be but I don’t know where the errors are). This game will probably be put on hold until I get some new ideas for the game.
// Johan
We did play
- Kablamo (from Gigantoskop).
- The new Dungeon crawler from Fantasy flight. (I can't spell the thing). This game a lot of time.
- A pirate game from Avalon Hill (can't remember the name).
We uses the BGG system (1-10). All games are rated with the same scale. The only difference is that the components are not so much included in the scope for a prototype. Rats received an average 8.0 and that is good (among the 15 best games this year (we have tested over 110 games)).
I like the basic mechanism. You have control over the road (since you and your opponents are the one that decides it). In the end, I will probably change the theme.
I'd be interested to know what scope of game it's supposed to be... like a tabletop war game with units on Cards instead of minis? Or something like Munchkin?
The game time was one issue. I like this theme (and what you can do with it), but I have tried this both as a card game and as a board game (don’t work). I have to design the complete mechanism ;).
The mechanism are more as a table top card game with units that moves over the table to places.
// Johan