This week has been playtesting week. A lot of internal testing was done, as well as external testing. We tested many different configurations, like number of players, cards in starting hand and cards on the table. We also added a new feature: the trap card and with that: items.

The majority of the internal testing was done on Wednesday 2013-10-22. We played from morning until the afternoon. We continuously made subtle changes between rounds, to see how much things changed. A problem that we currently have is how long rounds take. It’s really quite inconsistent. One round may take five minutes and the next one thirty minutes. This honestly became more of a problem when we added the trap mechanic. When a player successfully “traps” another player he is granted an item card. We currently have one item, which is the dynamite.

The dynamite can stop a player that is just about to win by blowing those cards up, this means the game will basically continue for as long as there are dynamites in the game. The dynamite is just the first item to be added, so when we add a few others so players don’t always get the dynamite, rounds will probably be a bit more predictable when it comes to time. The trap and items were the largest changes introduced during the Wednesday. The rest was small fine tuning. We now have set the number of players to always be four, as we found the results from four players with four cards in their starting hand each worked out most consistently. I enjoyed playtesting greatly. I bluffed all the time and had a blast. It’s really great to just go crazy and make it hard for the other players to read me. Not everyone enjoyed my craziness, but it was just too great to pass up!

External playtesting was done the day after; Thursday. We put our paper cards into card sleeves to make them easier to shuffle, because that was a problem we’ve had for some time. It also protects the cards to an extent. People tested our game, but I was only present for a few moments when others tested our game, as I was busy playing other groups prototypes. But it seemed like people generally enjoyed it, but they wanted more items, which is on the to do list! The games I tested this week were the gun game, the game with the stealthy and murderous ladybug, and lastly the game with mice and cheese. I liked all of the games as they were quite enjoyable, I raised the few qualms I had about them to the respective group members, but it was nothing much.

I look forward to adding more items into the game next week!