Every playtest has been great. I little change here and there...
That is, until my friends got it on Saturday. With no restrictions, taking all armor and all weapons, they broke the game in twain. I was a bit disheartened, especially since we played a full game, took 2 hours, and half of them weren't having fun. I had to document this here since it is valuable information and allowed me to further refine the game through card restriction and retooling cards.
Max 5 copies of a card. Max 8 defense cards.
I played on Sunday to find that, while much more balanced, players weren't doing enough damage. I'm adding 1 extra damage to all attacks and having to add caveates to the cards which already deal tons of damage. I tinkered around with the idea of 2 attacks a turn, but that will just get stupid with the damage output and no one would want to move.
If I ever get photoshop loaded again, I'm going to make nice cards to print out and possibly hire an artist to make a single drawing for each character. I can see this as going somewhere. It's going to be all cards and a board so I can have it done by the game crafter as a prototype. The only thing left are figurines.
Comments
Agh. You speak to one of my
Agh. You speak to one of my greatest fears, running something I made for friends, only to have them deconstruct it without enjoyment. Like it says in Luke 4:24, "no prophet is accepted in his hometown." The people who know you best can be your harshest critics and the ones least willing to acknowledge brilliance or innovation in your work.
Some had fun (people who
Some had fun (people who built their deck like a normal, sane person) until the friends out to break the game were taking no damage or dealing tons of it. I wanted that though. I need to know what the limits are. I wouldn't want to release a game and then find out it has a game-breaking flaw.
That being said, I'm sure this isn't their type of game, nor do I think they would acknowledge my games unless they were on shelves.
well
any game needs to be really tested. Someone has offered to play mine with 'game snobs' but I'm really looking forward to the feedback from that. If they like it - great, if they find flaws then it shows me how to improve.
I know you haven't got any artwork but I'd recommend at least putting some clip art/stock images on for prototype purposes. A card with the word Ninja on it (for example) doesn't really carry any emotion/excitement but a picture helps get across some of the effect. This will be a closer experience to the finished game and most people are forgiving of 'hallway art'.
Better Now
This is what playtesting is for. Players like to test the boundaries and if there is something broken they will eventually find it. A big part of development is finding holes and repairing them. It's better to find them now than 6 months from now.
Min-Max
It's natural for players to pick a strategy and pound the crud out of it. Salvage, trade, offense, defense, non-stop movement, hiding, etc.
Sure as anything, some player will decide to strip out all weapons and go for nothing but armor. If survival is valuable, then they might even win without firing a shot.
Min-Maxing. Gotta love it, and hate it, but most of all plan for it. ;-)
Evil ColSanders wrote:Every
That is, until my friends got it on Saturday. With no restrictions, taking all armor and all weapons, they broke the game in twain. I was a bit disheartened, especially since we played a full game, took 2 hours, and half of them weren't having fun. I had to document this here since it is valuable information and allowed me to further refine the game through card restriction and retooling cards.
I agree It's really disheartening when you have a group of players and they say they're not having fun with your game.
I remember I designed a game based around a deck building sleight-of-hand magic dueling game. I spent months creating it. To me, I thought it was brilliant and I made a prototype copy for my friend who works at a publisher. He came back to me and said that while the mechanics were good, the game just wasn't fun. Ugh. I scrapped it and I was ok with that. It hurt, but it was for the best.
You gotta take those things in stride. Better to scrap an idea that's not fun than to release a bad game, wasting all that time and money for the sake of your vision. There's something to be said about destroying your own game and rebuilding; you apply lessons learned from that project and make a better game.
Now that I've got a game about to be published, I've learned...so much about the importance of testing...and I've worked in the video game industry as a tester for over 3 years in my early career. Now I challenge people to break my game. I always ask what they didn't like..and then I fix it, even slight ones like, "this game feels too long" or "I kinda understand the function of THIS card". It all gets fixed. My artist goes crazy, but he knows it's for the best.
I know you haven't got any artwork but I'd recommend at least putting some clip art/stock images on for prototype purposes. A card with the word Ninja on it (for example) doesn't really carry any emotion/excitement but a picture helps get across some of the effect. This will be a closer experience to the finished game and most people are forgiving of 'hallway art'.
I agree and I disagree with this statement. While I truly agree prototypes should be bare bones as far as look is concerned, I don't even put art in my prototypes until the game feels solid. I do this because I believe the theme should shine through its functionality; the art should just take it over the top. If it's a ninja, then make it function like a ninja and it should feel like a ninja without art. Then when art is applied, it becomes a whole package. If the player can imagine the ninja without the art, then THAT'S the time to put in art.
As a professional 3d artist I really have to fight that feeling of putting art into my prototypes, but I know that in the end, I shouldn't force one to help the other. Now all my prototypes have no art until the game feels solid and fun.
I kinda have to go with Matt
I kinda have to go with Matt on art in prototypes. I've asked people to play. They look the game up and down the way you would subconsciously look at a person as a potential mate and decline. I believe the more "finished" a game looks, the more inclined they are to try it. Also, just because my friends don't like it is no reason for me to stop working on it. I hate bidding games, and if a friend made one, he should know to take my opinion with a grain of salt. My game is a phoenix, rising from the ashes of hot garbage into a more refined piece of garbage.
Since I'm at work, before I forget, I just though of a passive for wizard. Discard a spell to negate 1 wound.
Evil ColSanders wrote:I kinda
Since I'm at work, before I forget, I just though of a passive for wizard. Discard a spell to negate 1 wound.
I've heard several designers chime in on this topic and say that it's good to have art but you don't want the game to look too polished or people will assume that it's too far in the process to change drastically.
Our very first playtest at our local FLGS, we had 35 people show up and we playtested for 4 hours. We tried to make up very nice prototypes and spent a fortune on toner to do that. We got pretty positive feedback on the game but looking back the design was pretty amateurish. People enjoyed the concept, the art, and such but I could tell the game play was stilted and just not really very fun.
It was an expensive lesson. Until you have a game that you know isn't broken it's generally best to stick to cheap and dirty. If your friends aren't into playtesting then find someone who is. I would probably try to get several different groups to playtest but I think it's important to be as objective as possible when observing player experiences. If people aren't having fun playing the game, it might be best to move on to the next design and shelve this one until you can figure out why.
That's just my 2 cents, of course, and really I'm just another fledgling designer.
Once you have that Golden Nugget
I think shelving a design is a hard-cold reality... We all want our designs to be "the best" - but sometimes when you think about WHO will be playing your game and the only answer you have is 200 people... Well then you know that's a sad amount of people.
Such a design should have probably been shelved.
Let's think about it for a moment:
All this means is IF you cannot complete the game and at least make enough money to pay for artwork - well you should have probably shelved the game.
That's why I am ACTIVELY brainstorming a game that can get made UNDER $10k including artwork, manufacturing and shipping... To me this sounds like a promising project... We'll see what I end up with (in the end...)
Evil ColSanders wrote:I kinda
Since I'm at work, before I forget, I just though of a passive for wizard. Discard a spell to negate 1 wound.
Everyone has their method of design. I'm of the camp that a game has to stand on its own before putting in art...even if it's clip art. It makes for a stronger game and even stronger when the art is added. It's what my mentor (Alan Emrich, owner of Victory Point Games) taught me and it's served me well.
I'm...not married to my designs. All my games are malleable and open to change.
Regardless of art or
Regardless of art or completeness, if you are playtesting, demoing, or showing off for a game you are currently kickstarting, I've found that if playing with the designer, players will TELL you what THEY think "you need to change about the game".
I've had 3 different groups playtest my new game. Only a minor change was made in the first group. My friends destroyed it, thus showing trouble areas which I fixed. The third group showed the result of the changes and required more improvements to other aspects due to the change. I'm always hoping the next change is the last but you know how that goes...
As for art, I probably won't but I wouldn't mind dropping a hundred or two for a few quality drawings for a game which may never see the light of day. If anything, it's for my personal enjoyment. I can look at it years from now and say "man, what a cool game I made" or maybe it's just ego or hubris talking.
I'll try and get a PnP up for you all to try.
About artwork
The thing is that IF you have some NICE artwork - your playtests MAY go better. Take my first game "Quest Adventure Cards(tm)". I had a playtest with four (4) other designers and they said that my game was the most "polished" game they had ever played (Indie Game - not commercial).
And currently with "Tradewars - Homeworld", as I spread news about the game, people are telling me "Whoa, I really like the artwork, I really want to play this game!" I am not surprised, if the artwork is interesting it adds a collectible aspect to the game: nice artwork for a card game is something people have become accustomed to with things like Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh! and Magic: The Gathering...
So I think it's a smart idea to INVEST in maybe 5 to 10 cards and have them professionally rendered. Show people what you get and if they like it you know more people will probably be also interested in the buying a copy of the game.
Also NICE Black & White prototype cards go a long way if playtesters like the feel of a prototype. You don't even need color - B&W is fine. Adding color and artwork are a later stage in the game - when most of the game is ironed out and only small rulebook details need to be revisited.
All this to say that I think artwork in "Card Games" is important. Board games are more subjective since usually they blend cards and board...
Maybe someone else can "chime-in" with regards to "Board Games"...!
I say
I say why invest in all the art if the game isn't sufficiently tested out?
Here's an example. This is a pic of my cards before and after the art.
https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/11401166_8901...
For a long time, my cards looked like the left. While I was testing, I was scouting artists, testing their style, and seeing if that style would fit for my game. When I felt my game was strong enough, THEN I added in the art.
Again, maybe it's just me. I've seen beautiful art on crappy card games and I've seen crapy art on games with awesome mechanics. Even when I was in the video game industry, the art is candy and was added in at the last minute, with "placeholder" art (many times being a large white cube) in just for functionality.
I understand it being a personal project, but I wouldn't waste time putting in art especially when the functionality of the card and art isn't final. Get the game good, then put in the art.
...
Brilliant.
I'm coming more from the card game perspective so I will have at least sketches on them. I know that colour stuff can be toner draining so just some black and white stuff would be fine. I wouldn't expect someone to have a shiny looking set at all levels but once you have got the bulk of the game sorted then make a better looking prototype. It also makes the endless playtesting a little more bearable
For my game(s) I am sketching the cards out myself on blank playing cards with felt tips which gives an idea of whats going on with a bit of fun. I only commissioned an artist once I was happy with the game.