Quest — The Reboot

The game is rather "simple" TBH. But I can't believe that COMPLEXE games can be designed with 3 Poker Cards of instructions. Or on 3 sides of a Hook Box ... Maybe it's just me, but I can't possibly imagine rules that are very easy to write and require less room for them.

What I mean is that: "there is not sufficient room on 3 Hook Box sides to write rules that span a 20-Page rulebook for a game..."

So this leads me to believe that those games are VERY SIMPLE TOO. And there is nothing WRONG with this... It's just a game that appeals to a younger audience.

I had put images (card samples) and even with the few images that I put... There was HARDLY enough room to put all the French rules (because French is a more verbose language)...

I will playtest the game when I get the cards and then we shall see if it passes my Game Design Test. I know I'm not looking for something too complex but at the same time, I know the audience for the product.

Armed with this information, I should be able to make a determination IF the game is sufficiently interesting enough. And BTW I was given a 3/10 for the original version of "Quest Adventure Cards(tm)" from "Purple Pawn" way back in 2011 (or was it 2012?) But he was looking at it from an "Adult" Perspective not a game that a 7+ Year Old may be interested in playing especially if they are being drawn to Adventure/Fantasy and card games (given that the MATH is much simpler than your Standard Deck of 54 Poker Cards)...

It's true that while I wanted to appeal to a younger audience with this game, I quickly realized that the game was much too simple and needed more depth of "strategy" to entice older players like parents and siblings along with the younger folk too. Knowing this has led me to realize that the game needed some "important" changes TBH. And so I have made some significant changes when it comes to the complexity to master the game and have added more levels of abstractness. So let us look at the changes together:

No more ordering of cards

Previously the cards had an "easy" set of "Victory Points" which went from 1 to 5 points. Melds were rather simple and followed a numerical order. Well I got rid of that mechanic because it made the game too simple. It felt more like a game of Poker than a game of "Quests" and "Adventure".

I made an entirely new spreadsheet today to address this problem and realigned all the scoring for each card. What this does is significantly make it harder to predict what is the best move or play in most situations.

Added suits to the game

Precisely four (4) suits have been added and are: squares, circles, triangles and stars. This addition will put a wrench in the younger players as they may not comprehend the abstract nature of these symbols. I think this means that the game is playable by older players such as 9+ or higher depending on each player's mental reasoning. We state that the game is for both Families and kids aged 12+ and with this addition... It may be more accurate.

What does this imply? On a player's turn, they build one of two (2) types of "Quests": Quests by color or Quests by suit.

The amount of cards playable on a turn is still two (2) quest cards and one (1) Event card. Or you may play one card towards a quest already in-play. This makes the game more "open" and adds a bit of abstractness to the game.

Scoring needs more playtesting

Originally players needed 30 "Victory Points" to win. Now with more valuable cards, I think it may be necessary to up the win clause to 40 Points.

Of course this requires more playtesting in order to determine the right balance. In addition, it will require me re-design ALL the cards in this version of the game. I'm going to work on it while I wait for the first prototype to arrive (Jan 27 or 28)

I wanted to talk a bit about how all these changes affect the game. Colors were already at seven (7) and is not new. Colors require one (1) of each suit AT MOST, that is new (and this makes for melds or sets of 4 cards). We simply state that Quests can have at maximum four (4) cards. To play a Colors Quest, you must have two (2) or more cards of the same color in your hand. Or you may play one or two cards into existing Quests in-play.

Now with the addition of four (4) suits, you can now play two (2) cards with the exact same suit. Much like the Color Quests, Suit Quests also allow for a maximum of four (4) cards.

It will be interesting to receive and playtest the first version of the game knowing that I have already made changes to the game prior to playing the prototype. We'll have to see how matters play out. Playtesting will help reveal any flaws in the design.

I also have to work on the "Strategy Guide"... which will have more explanations than the "Folio Rules" which are just a quick reference.

If anyone has questions, comments or feedback they'd like to share, feel free to add your thoughts and I'll answer any feedback I receive.

Cheers all!

It took a few days to get it made. I had a bunch of images to insert, plus icons too for the suits and then I had to fiddle with MS Word because it wasn't allowing me to make identifiers on the sample cards.

But now it looks pretty decent TBH.

I was thinking that I could make a Strategy Guide instead... but it's much to complicated and would require so many sample cards, it would be too much work.

So a Game Rules document it is! Cheers.

Indeed there are two (2) different types of quests: one having all the same color with different suits and one having all the same suit with different colors.

There is now only one (1) hand to manage also. Previously there were two (2) hands to manage. It made the 2nd hand dumb: you would dump extra cards into that hand.

And it was pretty much useless otherwise.

I still don't have this version of the game... I am awaiting some funds to pay TGC for an updated version.

The amazing thing about this "Reboot" is that it no longer has any problems or weird stuff like: discard to the "middle" of the draw deck. And then there was the Treasury (as mentioned above). There were Quest Definition cards too, those were there to control the flow of the game. A bunch of things that were not natural.

It also had weird events too. Things like the old blacksmith which sounded cool but were hard to manage. If you need 2 pages in a rulebook to explain 1 card... well I guess you get the point...

But yeah... much better and with medium complexity with the addition of suits. Not all kids will understand... but more adults will enjoy the experience.

Cheers and thanks for that keen observation...

So it probably took about an hour to upload all of the new cards for the latest version of the game. I also had the time to upload the folio and update that component also.

Still waiting for the original version to land... it's on its way too! It has cleared customs and should be delivered by Friday.

I just want to have a look of the overall quality of that product and order the revised version asap...

I'll let you all know my thoughts about the original reboot version soon enough.

Best!

The tuck box looks great, the cards look real nice too... but there would be plenty more room to have extra space for expansion cards. However I'm not sure.

I bought some Deck Boxes over at Temu for $15 CAD each and they should arrive at the end of the month. Like I said in the previous post, I am waiting for some money to come in that will allow me to purchase a newer copy of the game (Quest) and allow me to playtest that version.

Right now it's a question of finalizing the game and seeing how improved it is from the current version.

I will let you all know when that version is on its way!

Best.

I also removed the Folio. Why? Because I felt like it was hard to summarize all of the information required to play into a small format (3 poker cards) since it needed to be bilingual (English & French) and that did not leave enough room for proper explanations.

I've still got to proof it a few extra times... But this rulebook (the BIG one) has only 5 pages and is fully bilingual too...

So I'm happy that's not too overwhelming TBH.

I'll let you know as soon as I order the current version for playtesting.

Sincerely.

I've managed to add a couple of additional layers to add some complexity to the game. It's pretty clear some things need to be confirmed with some playtesting.

What exactly???

Well playtime (how long a 2-Player game or a versus 4-Player game, etc.)

And then there is the "collections" versus the "quests" and how the interaction between those two work.

Seeing how scoring works... what is the minimum and how Team play is affected, etc.

Some of the details still need to be validated.

Cheers.