CyberBoard~ Tool for designing and playtesting

No, not the programmer. I just used it for what it does best: make your favorite board games come to life on the computer. It has a map making and playing piece design program built in. We played it by email and used a moderator to allow 7 others to play a very large game.

Instead of a bulky paper prototype, you can design in CB and send it to players for blind-testing.... the true test of a good game.

I have found that using ownership limits card viewing or counter peeking, but cannot prevent cheating if a player goes through a duplicate file method. For this reason, a utility such as an online chat in realtime is necessary for face to face type games and can be done easily with ICQ or any of the messenger systems. :idea:

Best use of this system in a design function are the tools when making changes and improvements. An age ago, a playtest kit had to be produced, and duplicated, sent to playtesters and if problems existed, it rendered the set obsolete. In CyberBoard or Vassel (I am nearly ignorant of it's features), the set can be altered and copies sent in very much less time. Hours instead of days to make changes, get results and test further.

Mike, I have found no playtester willing to cheat. For most it is an effort to play a prototype with not so well rounded features that they must help point out and fix.

It's like taking your car in to a mechanic and worrying that he is under there yanking wires out or something. Feel lucky that you can find someone knowledgable enough to help and bored enough to actually spend time on your pet project.

Most are on a quest to break the game and make you look dumb anyway. :roll:

Mike, I'm with you. Still, there are game mechanics that make a system work and still seem contrived, or fabricated and if the process does not smooth things through so that the gamers can simply proceed with play, something is wrong.

We were amusing ourselves last night on the Consimworld Live Chat that there are still a couple of rulesets that are over 150 pages long! How could you not make errors?

I've designed a couple of card games I'd like to get prototyped for real-time online play. PBEM doesn't work. Any realtime alternatives available. Even commercial ones are fine.