Our second meeting established most of our ideas in the game. We were originally going to create a separate deck of cards for each stage in the game, but after some careful thought decided that that was an element that was redundant and unnecessary. Where we first thought we would represent different types of obstruction (such as the traffic jam), we decided to simplify it by reducing it to simply an “obstruction.” We created a deck of 50 cards, distributing 1-6 onto each card (your movement amount – like a card version of dice). We staggered the numbers like this:
1: 5 cards
2: 8 cards
3: 15 cards
4: 12 cards
5: 6 cards
6: 4 cards
This, as we found out during testing, was an extremely well balanced deck. We then split the deck 50/50 and added an “X” on 25 cards (obstruction) and an “H” (hinder) on the other 25. Lastly, 10 cards were given a star, representing a combo card. We had our basic rules ready to be tested:
Each player draws a hand of three cards prior to beginning the game. On a turn, a player first draws a single card. Secondly, the player selects a card and plays it. With each card, the player may do one of the following:
1. Use the number values on the card to move that many spaces.
2. Use the hinder part of the card (H) to move a player backwards half of the number value (rounded down – this we will actually put on the final cards, we were just too lazy to write them in on a prototype).
3. Use the obstruction part of the card (X) to place an obstruction, which no player may move through, on any space – so long as it never fully blocks a path.
4. If a combo card is drawn, you may use both parts of your card.
If the player uses the movement value of his card, he may move that number of spaces, but may not land on the same place more than once. If the player lands on a place with another player, the player who moved the piece moves the other player backwards. This does have a trickling effect, as this could force multiple players to move backwards. Whoever moves his piece to the end of the game board first, wins.
We added what looked like appropriately sized spaces on our board, and made our player pieces. We tested our game. About halfway through, we noticed that we rarely used the hinder or obstruction of our cards, unless it was on a combo card. As this was our primary mode of frustration, we knew this needed to be fixed. We stopped the game and made a few amendments. One of us had the idea to make cards with multiple obstruction pieces, so we did. We also decided to make all of the cards combo cards. Our last revision had the “H” of a car equal to the number on the card (as opposed to halving it). The hand of three cards was thrown out, and we decided the player would have to use the card he draws each turn.
Within 10 minutes we knew we had made some mistakes. Our pieces were all clumped together, only about 6 spaces away from the start and there were more spaces with obstructions that without. We ended the game. We instantly got rid of the multiple obstruction cards and returned the hindering value to half rounded down of the movement value.
We played that game again. Something we all noticed early on is that the players are always close to each other and the hindering and obstructions were actively changing the game and being quite useful to frustrate the other players. At first we were worried, but noticed that being so close to each other is in and of itself frustrating, as anyone could be the winner. We ended the game when we got to where our board had stopped, as we hadn’t decided what to do about multiple terminals in the game. We called it a night, but not until we discussed our feelings of the last game. First, it was way too long, especially in the road section which lasted at least 15 minutes by itself. And secondly, we felt overall that it wasn’t quite frustrating enough; so we would spend the next day thinking of how to add more frustration without changing too much of the game play. Getting rid of the hand of cards proved wise; this added another random element and something that could ultimately be frustrating – in a good way. Until next time,
-Connor
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