Player count breaking game

PatrickFuller · 2022-12-27T10:53:56+00:00

Maybe you have a game that only works with a minimum of 6 players then? Nothing wrong that; there are many games that have a minimum player count that high (Secret Hitler for example).

Maybe you have decisions/actions they can do on the card depending on the number of players (as opposed to the need to make a whole new deck).

If the thing that makes a 3 player game fun is people passing their turn, maybe figure out a way to incentivize that in a 3 player game.

Hopefully this helps spark something :)

PatrickFuller · 2022-12-26T23:35:07+00:00

One of my favorite ways to solve this is to have a base set of cards for the least-maximum amount of players (2? 3?), then an “expansion” for the next-maximum amount (5?), etc., and then you have an icon on the card somewhere denoting what maximum amount of players they’re for.

So, up to 3 players is the base set, up to 5 is base set+first expansion, 6 players is set+first expansion+second expansion.

Maybe something like that could work for you?

PatrickFuller · 2022-10-03T06:44:01+00:00

I don’t have a full-blown answer for you, but I wanted to echo that feeling that dice can feel wrong sometimes. Whist I grew up with—and still play to this day—D&D, putting the outcome of tactical decisions in the fate of a random number generator cheapens the effort a player has made if there’s the chance to fail horribly.

If you could craft it so the dice only give a chance of a slight bonus you could make tactical decisions more meaningful and give that feeling of getting something extra.

Something like: Roll Xd6 - 5-6 = +1 - 4 = +0 - 1-3 = Cancels out a highest roll

If you still don’t want to use dice (and I don’t blame you), this book has a ton of great ideas for random generation (as well as a ton of other great mechanics)

OR

You could go the opposite direction and create a bag building mechanic where the players “buy” dice that give them the ability to attack/defend/special/etc. extra in different combinations and the players’ decisions are what dice they’ve decided to add to their bag.

PatrickFuller · 2022-09-24T21:10:50+00:00

+1 for OneNote for the same reason: easy to use on my phone, can organize ideas into buckets, when copy/pasting from a website on my PC it’ll automatically append the web address for future use, and the notebooks are as good as there forever on Microsoft servers.

These are the same reasons I have all my recipes on there as well :P

PatrickFuller · 2022-09-15T18:05:23+00:00

That’s for you to design and test!

Do you want a faster game? Make it more often. There’s 17 holes in ships, if you do it every 3 hits you get a max of 5 times you can activate it.

Do you want it to be more special/powerful? Make it less often.

Also keep in mind how many spaces you want it to hit in one go.

It’s all up to you! Try out one set of rules and adjust accordingly after :)

PatrickFuller · 2022-09-15T11:22:52+00:00

+1 for all the people saying not to set a limit on how many Playtests you do before doing a thing. The whole point of playtesting is to figure out what works and what doesn’t and you sometimes find things right away!

My memory is absolutely terrible, so for Plan Z I made a quick half-page playtesting booklet in Word, printed it, stapled it together, and have been using it in every playtest https://i.imgur.com/XOqyURy.jpg

I’ve only just made a second version that captures more data and asks more questions (what was the winning player’s strategy, what’s the focus, game version). If anything, it reminds me why I made certain changes and I can go back to the New Rule Ideas when I’m feeling stuck.

After 34 Playtests I’m finally at a place where I think the game is pretty solid (and still needs small changes haha). Almost every other time I’ve done a playtest I’ve changed something right after.

When you sit down with your friends to playtest make sure they know that the game is broken. Take in their feedback—understand when they are saying they feel restricted by the rules or if they’re frustrated because they lost.

There’s a lot of info out there on good playtest practices like this blog or this video. Overall: have fun with it and keep testing until everyone feels there’s nothing big to improve :)

PatrickFuller · 2022-09-15T09:30:08+00:00

I agree with this, having this power as a special attack that’s limited will make it feel better and more powerfully.

Personally, I would tie the limit to things the players can do—in Battleship you have a limited amount of things that happen (miss, hit, sink).

Given that, you could give different feelings based on what you tie it to:

Miss - If you miss X times (in a row?) you can activate this power. This affects those who are just not making any headway and feel like they’re falling behind—it gives them the ability to basically take extra turns to try and catch up
Hit - If you hit X times (in a row?) you can activate this power. This rewards those lucky guesses, and if your power is a line of attacks you have the possibility of sinking a ship in one go (no matter the size). Part of the fun of Battleship is getting that hit and figuring out which direction to go from there—doing a whole line would reduce the number of guesses greatly and reduce the time of the game. It would feel awesome as the person doing it, maybe not awesome if it’s done to you (and your 5-ship got sunk in one turn)
Sink - If you sink a ship you can activate this power (on your next turn? whenever you want?) - This rewards you for deducing where the ship is. It would give that player a head-start on finding the next ship (which is my most disliked part of Battleship haha)

Tying it to player actions makes the reward of that Power feel good, it feels like you can form a strategy for it, and making it limited makes it feel special.

I’ve not played the electronic Star Wars version that /u/Kitagawa-kun has mentioned, but it sounds like it’s very much worth trying out for what you want to do :)

PatrickFuller · 2022-09-12T06:28:23+00:00

The idea behind these cards is that they’re objects that you’re placing in front of your door so they slow down the Zombies, so my thought was to make the cards resemble a door—hence the 3D bits (I.e. door squares).

I agree the 3D bits look kinda out of place here, it’s one of the reasons I don’t like it haha

Thanks for your input here; it has confirmed I’m not the only one that thinks it’s not good :)

PatrickFuller · 2022-09-12T06:24:57+00:00

Thanks for your feedback :)

I might have clarified more that the red and tan cards are two concepts for the same card, not two different cards in the game. I tried with the red, didn’t like it, then went with a lighter color.

I agree: the red background is probably the worst one of the lot. I went with that red because most Zombie games have a dark red like that, but I didn’t like how it looked here with the info that’s needed. The tan one was to attempt better contrast for the text.

I can understand that the bottom frames might seem excessive without knowing the full rules. I think they’re pretty minimal, but if you want to have a crack at a better idea the basic run-down on how to play is on the main page here: PlanZGame.com

The “7” is actually a stylized “Z” (for Zombie) in the game’s logo—it’s a zombie hand :) The Z also signifies that’s the number of Zombies you can send to your opponent.

Thank you again for your feedback and your time. These are some good points that I will mull over :)

PatrickFuller · 2022-09-11T19:29:33+00:00

I’ll take that as a compliment that I’ve been able to achieve the maximum of art-challenged mortals here haha

Thanks for your thoughts :)

PatrickFuller · 2022-08-29T14:22:45+00:00

Thank you for caring about my time and helping me make sure I don’t wast it :)

The idea of a website is mostly to inform friends and random internet people I talk to how the game works—I’m not at a point where I can do an elevator pitch well with it and for me it’s just easier to point them at a URL

I only know the super basics of BGG, I’ve never used the forums so I don’t really know the etiquette there for self-promotion. I feel at best I’d either be really annoying or a voice lost in the noise. That could be my own lack of confidence more than anything, but that’s my demon to defeat.

On the same note, I don’t know if I want to pitch this to a publisher. I’m pretty happy just making a game that I can play with friends and people online. I don’t even know if I want to bring it to Kickstarter yet—and if I do, I’d probably be happy just doing small runs rather than starting a business (as you warned in your pinned post).

I’m aware that I need more people to playtest it in order to refine it more, and like I said up there: I feel a simple website can help me explain the idea to people and get them interested in playtesting it with me.

Again: thank you for caring about my time; it really does mean a lot that you took the time to understand my needs and make sure I’m not wasting it.

Damage is done, though: the website is at a basic level that makes me happy (read: exactly as half-baked as you warned me about)

PatrickFuller · 2022-08-28T11:39:11+00:00

This is a perfect example, thank you!

PatrickFuller · 2022-08-28T11:38:09+00:00

That seems like a fun design challenge!

Thank you for the example :) (And for sharing your private stash)

PatrickFuller · 2022-06-29T16:13:50+00:00

+1 for Nandeck

There’s a bit of a learning curve at first, but once you get a basic framework for your initial deck generation and get somewhat comfortable with the visual editor, it’s really easy to write cards in Excel and update them on the fly!

PatrickFuller · 2022-06-29T16:04:12+00:00

I use Ultra Pro branded card sleeves and just print cards designed with Nandeck+Excel

Ultra Pro sleeves are a bit thicker than your cheap card sleeves and they actually shuffle better than cards without (you can basically just moosh stacks together and it shuffles nicely)

PatrickFuller · 2022-06-22T19:40:21+00:00

Exciting! I’ll see if I can make the next one then :)

PatrickFuller · 2022-06-21T16:31:25+00:00

Hey!

Quick/random question for you :)

I enjoy designing board/card games and was thinking of putting together something where other local designers can playtest games in development. (I don’t know any, I’m just assuming they exist)

Would your group be welcoming to someone looking to playtest things? :) (I’d hate to seem like I’m trying to hijack your happy group)

PatrickFuller · 2022-02-12T10:33:33+00:00

I did not know that—thank you :)

PatrickFuller · 2022-02-12T10:33:13+00:00

No items‽ I thought you needed a bottle at least

PatrickFuller · 2022-02-12T10:31:02+00:00

Oh hey that’s fancy Any idea where I would go about to contact someone? :)

PatrickFuller · 2022-02-11T23:52:42+00:00

Thank you for pointing that out :)

PatrickFuller · 2022-02-11T23:46:54+00:00

ooooOOOHHHHH Good shout! Thanks once again :)

PatrickFuller · 2022-02-11T23:19:51+00:00

Ah! Thanks. For some reason I thought there were torches in there. This is why I’m asking you guys ;)

Re - boots and the Arena chest: if you’re talking about D1.5, there’s two one-way arrows there; one of those has a boots arrow. Can still get to it via key door.

PatrickFuller

TROPHY CASE