Zoo Contest Playtest

Anybody?

These are some rule changes I've considered. (A couple are suggestions from the critiques thread of the challenge.) However, none of them seem to be improvements, from my own testing (primarily solo, but I did get a friend to play a couple games against me).

* A mouse can either move or spawn another mouse, but not both, and they can still only spawn laterally.

* Only have three mice available per side, rather than four. (Or maybe five, but I'm pretty sure that will get too crowded.)

* Allow a player to remove one of his own mice from the board in order to move his elephant.

* Allow monkeys to move any two squares. (i.e., they can make a chess knight's move).

* A monkey visiting his friendly elephant is safe from the other elephant, so can ignore the move restriction and the retreat requirement. However, that means that moving his own elephant might require him immediately to retreat his own monkey. (This could be used strategically, since the retreat is not always a bad thing -- it's a free move, after all, even if it is restricted. If this were chess then this move would have a fancy French name.)

* A monkey that moves two squares tosses out opposing mice from both the square he moves through as well as the one he lands on.

Thanks! I'm looking forward to your results.

In the only blind playtest I've done so far, with two friends from work, I saw some confusion about the retreat rules...

I started typing out exactly how they were confused, but I guess that it would be a better idea to let you play from just the description, and tell me if you find any of it confusing.

As for variants, I'd like you to start with the rules as written, but if you see issues, go ahead and try what you think will help and let me know how it works for you.

The biggest concern Matt from MSP (and I) have, is that after a couple of games that players will find that there is only one winning strategy, and it just becomes boring. This hasn't been my experience, but that is mostly just playing against myself.

Again, I really appreciate it. I'll owe you one -- if you ever have a game you want playtested, contact me at zag .at. zag .dot. net (with the obvious substitutions) and I'll be glad to give your game a whirl. That goes for anybody who gives any game of mine a try and gives me some feedback!)

Thanks for the feedback.

Yeah. I've found that the elephant one diagonal step seems to be the best first move, though I haven't found it to be quite as conclusive as you suggest. But it's enough that I think that some restriction might be in order.

It was not the intent that the royal versions were any different at all. It was just intended as a way to signify that the piece had reached the far end, just to make it easier to keep track which pieces have made it. So I guess that it wasn't clear, if you read it that way.

@JTAshby: I'm considering adding the rule that the elephant's first move (only) may not be diagonal. It makes this sort of like castling in chess, that you can't do it if either the king or the rook have moved (even if they have since moved back).

On the other hand, it feels like a bit of a kludge.