There's a similar curvature to how I want people to approach play-testing.
For the first play test I want people to stick to the spirit of the game and not look too hard for obscure rules issues.
Once the game has started to stabilize, though, they should try to wreck it.
In most games, like poker, higher bets indicate that betting is less safe, but Skull does the opposite.
Skull creates a situation where early bets start small then slowly grow in size, which mimics those exciting movie moments with players betting higher and higher. 🎲✂️
One of the things that makes Skull so fun is that higher bets prompt even higher bets.
Whenever a person bets, it makes their coasters seem safer, which then increases the size of a reasonable next bet. The higher their bet, the stronger the indication that their coasters are safe. #boardgamedesign
Have you considered or tried spray paint. I found it pretty quick, but I haven't ever tried painting with a brush.
Yeah. A demo would be good. I believe that's what catapulted Gloomhaven to such massive hype, but I could be misremembering.
Thanks. I added BoardGameProtohype on Instagram to my list from your suggested interview.
Break my Game. They host scheduled play test sessions online.
What lesser known free or nearly free methods are there to market a board game? 🎲✂️
So far I have: Reddit give away, Reddit crowdfunding games launching this week, BGG crowdfunding countdown, Kickstarter projects we love, TTGDA post (for members), BMG post (for users), post about it in general.
It's a video game, actually. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Normally I don't compare video and board games, except maybe when the cross over is obvious like with Slay the Spire, but this similarity was too familiar and unexpected.
I haven't played many other turn based combat games, so for all I know this is really common, but I think the parallel with board games is quite interesting. I especially like how every character is unique but no character ever forces you to use a new action; it's just an incentive.
Even more variance is produced by the APs, gradient charge, status effects, stuns, and the varying turn order. You might briefly enter a cycle of using the same few skills over and over, but if you want to use gradient attacks or keep a status effect going, you're going to have to disrupt it.
Expedition 33 does the same thing with its character design. Several of the characters gain and then burn a resource, Maelle can't take the same stance twice, and one character is basically a rondel.
This incentivizes the player to perform new actions from turn to turn and avoid spamming just one.
In deck builders and hand management you cycle cards, in worker placement you draft actions, rondels (tend to) force you to pick new actions around the track, and games like Scythe and Beyond the Sun just ban taking the same action twice.
It's the most common principle I've found.
Expedition 33 shares a foundational principle with modern board games, and it's one of my favorite things about it.
In virtually every board game I've played, something pushes the players to perform a different action from turn to turn to keep the game interesting. 🎲✂️ 🧵(1/5)
Oh cool. Yeah, I've written about a lot of things over the years.
That's a good idea. Thank you. Still slowly working out having a website for this stuff.
I studied a bunch of icons from various published board games while preparing a rule book for Cardboard Edison, with a particular focus on Ian O'Toole.
For those who come after, this article captures what I learned 🎲✂️
rossongames.com/icons
#BoardGameDesign
My friend's submission hasn't received confirmation yet. Are all confirmation emails already sent?
Galactic Cruise shares a design principle with Concordia in that there is almost no "upkeep" in the game. The silo and agenda cards are both restored by player actions, such that the game rarely has to stop to reset anything. It's a nice feature that I love to see whenever it works for a game. 🎲✂️
In most games, Analysis Paralysis increases exponentially as you give the player more actions on their turn. If instead of 2 actions in Pax Pamir, I had 4, my turns wouldn't take twice as long; they'd probably take 3+ times as long.
This all depends on how integrated the actions are, however. 🎲✂️
Here it is. This is the golden rule of feedback, and I've seen it everywhere: movies, video games, and board games.
People are good at identifying problems with the design, but bad at coming up with solutions.
You don't seem to define "protect" though. I believe it's targeting one of your own units, but it could also be a keyword thing.
This is a problem throughout the rule book. Like "contest", "attack", and "defend". I think you need to define these terms based on the physical state of the game.
You can probably get by with just a little
"If the defending player has more banners (including cases where the village has *no* attackers)."
or something to that effect.
I think you don't need full sections explaining what happens when you defend or attack a village uncontested. The rule book sets up the model that people will use to remember the rules, and it's much simpler to let the "most banners" rule encompass those cases, since it can.
I got it. You're saying the units that were targeting the protected unit will instead target the unit doing the protecting.
When you say "targeted by rival units" you don't specify which "rival units" you're referring to, making it imprecise. That part could actually use its own example.
The term "duel" is confusing. I thought the glossary would define it but it just references back to the page. Is that when two units target each other? How would that happen if they're placed one by one?
On this one, you could skip the jargon and just say what game state constitutes a "duel".
I'm running into a few problems. Like "Units that protect another unit will be targeted by rival units instead of the unit they are protecting."
I have no idea what that means. Maybe explain how "protection" works and who's targeting who in this scenario.
Alright, cool.
Your export isn't using real text. In production your PDF export needs to use real text so that people can search for terms. It should be a setting in your design software. Something like turning off "for print".
I think you can put the second page on the back and move everything else forward. That might be a better use of that reference.
There are also, sometimes, equivalent rules that are simpler and take up less space.
I read a rulebook that had 5 rules to explain a simple concept, and it still missed edge cases. I suggested the much simpler rule: "When you build, if you have more builders than buildings, gain a building."
