Thursday: Feedback day

Three groups tested our game; I was only present when two of the groups played. Players quite easily grasped the concept and found it amusing, some more than others. The first group that played apparently though that the game should have more “power cards” with different variations, not just the dynamite.

We had already thought that we should implement different kinds of power cards, knowing that more people wanted us to do it feels reassuring. We will try to come up with other variations, although it is hard to do that without making the game too complicated, it will make the game more exiting if we succeed.

The second group did not really have any suggestions on how to make the game better, one thing was confirmed though; it is hard. Unless you are really lucky, you cannot win if you are a bad bluffer. Players really need to be convincing as they put down their cards, the slightest sign of uncertainty will make other players call you (“call you” sounds wrong…). The game was really harsh on the players who found it hard to act like they didn’t have bad cards. It could be something we should keep in mind. We want the players to be forced to bluff in order to win, but the amount of bluffing required now might be too much.

It was during the last session with the third group that we knew what had to be done. It took a really long time before somebody finally won, because of a problem we’ve been having since we first created the game.

You win the game when you put down your last card, without anyone calling it, or it being the correct card. Since the game ends when you win, at least one other player will always call your last card, making it impossible to bluff your way to victory. Right now it all comes down to luck; and you need a lot of luck in order to have a correct last card. Either you have to pass all the time and wait for the right card, or you can bluff and naturally get called. This system doesn’t really allow anyone to win; the game can be prolonged hours if players are unlucky enough, and the dynamites only make it worse: Even if a player is lucky enough to have a correct card as their last card, another player could always save his/her dynamite for just that occasion, prolonging the game further.

Right now, the time it takes to finish a game varies between five minutes and an hour. Fixing this is priority one. If we change the way that players win, making it harder/impossible to use prolong tactics or something like it, then we should get a more stable playing time. We were thinking about adding extra rules for when you only have one card left, I’m also thinking that calling a final card could have more requirements to it. Either way, there are a lot of ways to attend to this problem, we will have to find out what works best the next time we meet as a group.