Well,
With two other players I conducted the first playtest of Mi Gato se Incendia!
This resulted in a redesign of the game board (wen't from a 6x6 board to a 7x7 board for slightly more choices and also limited movement in some directions) and a few changes to the rules as well.
Now Mi Gato has a defined starting area, and players have 8 starting points to choose from.
Also if Mi Gato becomes er... Incendia, it will lose 1 life per turn until put out, making the game a lot more fast paced.
Without these rule changes and a change in the board, the average play time was about 5 minutes. Way to short.
I expect an average 3-4 player game will not take about 20-30 minutes, which is more what I'm looking for.
Next week I'll be doing a bit more playtesting with the new board and rules.
As my first game design that isn't just a mod of some other,existing game, I can now definately see why a lot of playtesting is required.
Cheers!
Ben
Hey,
Thanks everyone, even if my Spanish is aweful. :)
BTW, I own three cats myself. A while ago I came up with a concept called Feline Fysics - which is basically the laws of the universe that apply to cats, who are exempt from the basic natural laws.
(An example of this is as follows: Cats are always on the wrong side of any closed door. If you own two or more cats and have at least three doors then you actually own D-1 cats (which is 1 less cat then the number of doors you have handy). Assuming that one of these doors will always be open (as is the way of things with doors) then you'll have just enough cats to have one on the wrong side of each door.
I plan on building this concept into a few games in the future.
Anyway, the next round of playtesting is coming up and I'm anxious to see how these changes work with the game.
I think I also understand about game purgatory. It's the same thing with writing, you're never really finished with a story until the deadline hits (and goes by a week or four).
Cheers!
Ben