Last weekend, I took Anytown to Geekway to the West. On that Friday evening, there was a prototype demo session. I was a bit nervous going into the event because I didn't know if anyone would be interested in trying Anytown. At the end of the event, I had 2 partial playtests. For the first playtest, Zev from Z-Man Games sat down and played the first round. At the end of the round, I asked his opinion, and he provided a lot of constructive criticism. He said 3 things that have me starting to make changes:
1) He did not understand why there was card drafting. A common pool of building cards would work just as well, and reduce play time.
2) He did not understand why the Improved Entry tokens were in the game (catch-up mechanism).
3) There should be more tension in the game. His recommendation was to limit the number of workers that could access the standard resource locations (Forest, Quarry, and Gold Mine), which would force players to use more of the buildings.
While I understand Zev's reasoning for number 1, I want to attempt to keep card drafting in the game. For those that do not know or remember why I starting designing Anytown, there was a comment at one of the game days that there were not many games similar to 7 Wonders. When I heard this, I immediately thought "What would happen if card drafting and worker placement were combined?".
With that in mind, I believe I have the next iteration of Anytown ready to design. Actually, I have 2 iterations of Anytown ready to design. Let me explain. I had a crazy thought yesterday of creating 2 different games with the same mechanics and components. So here are my designs:
1) Focus on card drafting. This game would play similar to 7 Wonders/Among the Stars. Players would draft cards, selecting 1 to do something with, and then pass the remaining to the next player. At this point, players would then either play the card to build the building depicted, discard the card to build part of the common building, or discard the card to gain some resources listed on the card. After taking the card action, players would then place a single worker to use a building ability. Each year would be either 3 or 4 cards (still deciding that), with 3 years in the game.
2) Focus on worker placement. This game would be very similar to the current version of Anytown. The main differences are that the Improved Entry tokens would be removed, and players would either gain resources when drafting or discarding building cards (still trying to figure that out).
For both versions of the game, there would be 1 main change - there will be no more standard resource locations (Forest, Quarry, and Gold Mine). I think this will be a positive change for Anytown, provided it does not force players to discard too many cards for resources.
I am curious to hear your thoughts on these changes. Should I pursue 2 games for 1 box, or should I focus on 1 of the game ideas? Am I crazy for making major changes based on the feedback of 1 person, even if I believe it will improve the quality of the game?
