Game Design Diary – November 2018

The darkness of November gives way to the bright lights of December. There’s a smell of mulled wine in the air and – oh my Gods how did it get this late!?

It’s been a manic 6 weeks mostly because of the 12 Games of Christmas videos I’ve been publishing each day this month! So this diary post had to wait until all of that lot was published. And because I only decided to make those videos in early November, I had basically no time to work on game design all month. So… this will be a short article then!

I spoke a lot in my October post of the importance of keeping a habit going and how that would be a priority no matter what. So I’m frankly embarrassed to have so spectacularly failed to keep to that goal the very next month. But hey, you have to embrace passion projects sometimes and I’m extremely pleased to have been able to produce all those videos in so short a space of time. I certainly wouldn’t want to do that every month! But as a one off it was a valuable experience, and hopefully a valuable contribution to my Youtube channel!

Firstly, I failed to attend Playtest UK at all this month. The first meet clashed with my 6 month wedding anniversary so, you know, I’ll let that miss slide. By the time the second meet rolled round I was neck deep in video production chaos. I wasn’t playing games let alone playtesting! But at the start of the month I did get a couple of playtests in with friends! Which also represents a step outside the usual designer groups that I’ve been testing with up until now. That is a success!

And I have something to write about!

Tricky Treats

I had reworked the prototype of this in October and I’d say I got the rework about half right! The new powers awarded to players completing rows were fun and really let you string together some cool combos. Although they need some work to make all of them equally useful, and I need to be careful not to kill the tension in the house selection in the process.

To tighten up the game I had tried removing a third of the houses (so, 2 columns) but that was a complete disaster! Far too short and a complete flop. Replaying with 3 columns again and it was a far far better game But, again, went on a round too long. Need to find some happy middle ground!

Catch the Rainbow

Last month I reported an update to my prototype that involved a little bit of engine building. This was in an attempt to add a bit more of an arc to the gameplay. I added 3 adjustable tracks for each player that set their hand size, play rate (# of cards played per play action) and draw rate (# of cards taken from market on a draw action). They start at 2,1,1 respectively and can be improved by playing cards with certain symbols, and by completing rainbows. The draw track maxes out at 2 and drops back to 1 whenever you do a play action.

I managed to playtest this three times early in the month and I’m very pleased with how they went! The upgrades didn’t add too much complexity but were interesting and the rebalanced card deck seemed to be working well. This is definitely my strongest design at the moment and I’m looking forward to hearing the thoughts of the designers at Playtest UK when I next attend.

There are some clear development questions outstanding. Firstly, the game currently ends when the deck runs out and I suspect it would be better if there was game end card placed in the bottom X cards. Secondly the deck cleanly organises into neat 2 and 4 player variants (each card appears an even number of times), but not so obviously into a 3 player variant. I presume some cards need to come out, but I’m concerned random card removal might ruin the game if, say, too many of one colour are removed.

There is a further thematic question on what the upgrades represent. My thoughts currently lean towards the following:

• Hand Size = Clouds
• Play number = Rain
• Draw = Sun

I’m pretty pleased with how this ties into the theme. Although it kind of implies some extra interactions where too large a hand should decrease draw rate and if the amount of rain and sun aren’t in balance rainbows won’t appear, but I’m also not sure this game requires that level of analysis. It’s still a simple card game after all!

December Aims

I know it’s mid-December already but I wrote this at the start of the month! Christmas is always an interesting time of the year. Potentially super busy but also likely to give me a bit more time and space to think about things. The crazy busy video period is pretty much over too so I should have more time I could spend on design. But I don’t want to end up over promising and under-delivering… again. So what could be achievable?

• Rulebook drafts – both Wren’s Churches and Catch the Rainbow are around the stage that a rulebook would be useful, especially if I end up unable to playtest for a while.
• New designs – There are so many new ideas that I want to explore, and given I don’t have much in the way of design deadlines at the moment, it feels like the perfect time to make some progress. Last month I had spoken about a few game design competitions around this time of year and I’m not sure whether I’ll work towards those or simply stick to my own ideas (that might not conform to competition restrictions). I’m intentionally leaving this vague to give me the space to be creative and, hopefully, actually get stuff done!