New Game Design - Playtesting at a Convention

This past weekend was Geekway to the West - a 4-day board game convention in St. Louis.  It had been a couple years since I attended, but it was just as fun as in years' past.  The difference between this year and previous years, however, was that I brought a game design to playtest.  I have a lot to learn about bringing a game to playtest at a convention.

My first mistake at the convention was not setting aside time just to playtest the game.  I am used to going to Geekway to take part in the Play and Win promotion (play a game, then enter for a chance to win it).  Unfortunately, I spent most of Geekway doing just that.  When I finally thought to myself that I need to get a playtest in, it was Saturday afternoon, which was spent at the Euphoria tournament run by Stonemaier Games.  This left Sunday morning to get a playtest.

To follow up on the first mistake, it's time for something I did right: I playtested someone else's game.  Ben Rosset (designer of Brew Crafters) was at Geekway playtesting a game (tentatively called Home Brewers).  By watching someone else demo their game, it gave me a lot of information on how to present my game to people that have never seen it before.  Ben's game was a lot of fun, and I hope that I provided some decent critiques based on my play of it.

So now, back to the mistakes.  My 2nd (and hopefully last) mistake was that I did not get the word out about playtesting my game.  When I finally sat down to playtest, I had a few friends at the table that wanted to play.  Naturally, I let them play, along with the 1 person that was unable to find an available game.  At this point, I had a 5 player game (which I had never attempted before - the game plays 2-6), so I did not even think about asking anyone else to join in.  Although I received fantastic feedback (only 1 of the four players had played the game previously), I think I should have attempted to find one more person so that I could get as much feedback as possible.

With all that said, though, the playtest was fantastic!  After the first Year, we had a good 20 minute discussion (started by the other players - I was going to wait until the end) where many ideas and critiques were voiced.  The biggest complaint in a 5 player game was that there was not enough player interaction.  I had done quite a bit to help that for 2-4 players, but the traveling coach did not work well in a 5 player game because not every player had a chance to use it in the first Year. My plan, based on the feedback provided, was that there will be a second coach for 5-6 players, and a new building in each starting town that allows opponents to trade resources with the owner of the town.  I need to look further into the new building spot, though, because, based on our discussion, it could be too powerful (by allowing players to return their Workers to their home town if no agreement is reached).

Also, it appeared that the resource availability was a little high (after the last playtest, I increased the amount of resources received per worker).  The consensus was that there should a different amount of each resource available depending on what season it is (since each Year is divided into 4 rounds, each round can be considered a season).  I have decided to take this one step further by combining the seasonal resource collection with the event cards.  My plan (at the moment) is to have a default value for each resource, then a card of the current season will be revealed.  This card will adjust the value of the resources for that turn only, and, depending on the season, may also have some event (based on the old event cards).

Unfortunately, we were only able to complete 2 Years of the 3 played in a game.  At the end of Year 2, though, one player had uncovered a strategy that would allow him to score 11 points each round in Year 3.  This definitely seemed like a very powerful strategy (since the best buildings in Year 3 can score up to 10-12 points if they are upgraded), so I am going to pay close attention, and see if I need to make a change to (just slightly) weaken that path.

Looking forward, when I next go to a convention, I plan to devote most of (at least) one day to find playtesters whenever I take a design with me.  I would love to go to DieCon in June to attempt another playtest, but I will be unable to do so (kid patrol).

For the other designers out there, do you have any tips based on your experiences at taking designs to a convention?  For other convention-goers, what do you look for when being asked to playtest a game?

New Game Design - Playtesting

After a few months, I was finally able to get a playtest of my game!  There were many changes made since the last time it was playtested, so I will attempt to hit most of those changes as I describe how the playtest went.

This playtest was a 3 player game, so the first thing that had to be done was to take the cards for a 4 player game and randomly remove 6 cards (making sure at least 1 copy of each card was available).  Year 1 started with drafting all the cards (instead of draft 1 card and play it), which definitely allowed for better strategic choices since you knew all the building cards you had available at the beginning of the Year.  Since the number of rounds per Year decreased from 5 to 4, it was more important to have a good strategy based on the cards drafted.

For the 1st Year, I made the decision to get building cards that allowed me to increase my resource production and allow me to trade those resources (either for Gold or for Food).  On the first round, I also decided to build a house to get an additional Worker.  Even though this made it difficult early to have enough resources to keep constructing buildings, I really think it paid off later in the game.  At the end of the 1st Year, all 3 players had 2 buildings constructed in their "downtown" area, so everyone gained 2 Citizen Points (This was another change - the player with the most would gain 3CP, 2nd most 2CP, and 3rd most 1CP).

For the 2nd Year draft, my plan was to find a Blacksmith to lower my worker cost (1 Time reduction in all building costs), and then try to focus on protecting my town from opponent's Workers.  Early in the 2nd Year, I decided to try the new Traveling Coach (allows players to move their Workers to other buildings - at the end of each round, it moves clockwise to the next town).  To make up for losing a Worker in my town, I was able to build another house the next turn.  The Worker I moved to an opponent's town was a huge help as it probably gained me 8 or 9 CP over the course of the last 6 rounds (either by helping to build buildings or use one of their buildings to trade Gold for CP).  At the end of the 2nd Year, I had the most buildings in "downtown", while my opponents tied for 2nd most.

In the 3rd Year draft, I focused on getting buildings that could be upgraded for potentially large bonuses (5+ CP).  I was able to draft 3 such buildings.  Immediately after playing the first 2 of those buildings, however, I realized that I could not upgrade both, so I focused instead on upgrading the building that provided the best return, and used my remaining workers to get Gold to trade in for CP.  When Year 3 ended, I had 7 buildings in "downtown", while my opponents both had 6.

When everything was counted up, I won by a score of 66, 56, 53.  I finally won at my own game!

Now on to what needs to be addressed.  The glaring problem was that resources were too scarce.  It was extremely difficult to maintain enough resources to build anything late in the 2nd Year and during the entire 3rd Year.  Based on feedback from the other players (my wife and someone that has played the game twice before), I have increased the amount of resources that players receive when placing Workers in resource collection locations.  I also changed the cards that allow trading resources to match the change in resource collection.  At this time, I will not make additional changes prior to the next playtest, as I want to see how much this affects the game.

Something else that was brought up after the playtest was that it might be better to have a central town board that all players build instead of separate towns.  To help with this concept, I have decided to make the person that suggested this (Josh Walker) a co-designer to aid in determining the extent of changes that would need to be made to get this concept to work.  Josh has provided a lot of really good feedback every time he has playtested my game, so I have no doubt that we can make a really good game.

For anyone that is attending Geekway to the West this weekend, I will there all 4 days with my game available for anyone that would like to try it.