This is the fourth installment of a series by Brian Powers. To catch up, see these:
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Math, Art, and Game Design
A Series by Brian Powers
Part 4: The Initial Play Test
Game Design is a bit of a paradoxical form of art. Games are by their very nature social, yet the game design process can be quite a solitary activity. I’d bet most game designers get into this mess because they love playing games, yet they may spend ten times as long (maybe more!) in design mode as they do actually playing the games they design. But we eventually come to the moment: the first time we bring other people into the process – and hopefully bring some joy into their otherwise miserable lives.
Well, that’s an exaggeration, but I wouldn’t be lying if I said that play testing is my favorite part of the game development process. Ideally, when creating a new game, you’ll want to test the game yourself before bringing other people into the mix. This is when having dissociative identity disorder comes in really handy, because you have to jump from chair to chair, taking the turn of each player and trying to see things from his/her hypothetical point of view. Unfortunately I couldn’t do this with my game because at its core lie the decisions that players Red and Blue make (without knowledge of each other’s decisions). I needed some actual human beings. Fortunately, I know some of them!
Five of my friends came over this past Sunday afternoon and I showed them what I had been working on. After explaining the rules and the goal of the game, we played six rounds. How did it go?
Let me first go over the rules with you:
We set up the game board with a random assortment of red, blue, and green stones:
We next laid out the Reward Action cards and Modify Action cards, in this way (there are a few more Reward and Modify actions that I haven’t included here, but you should get the idea):
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Reward Actions |
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Red Make Red XO decision and receive red reward |
Blue Make Blue XO decision and receive blue reward |
Green Receive green reward |
X-Seller Take 1 point from each player who chooses “X” |
O-Lover Receive 2 points for O or O, 5 points if both are played |
Thief Take 1 point from a player of your choice |
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Modify Actions |
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Add 2 stones of any color(s) to the board |
Remove any 2 stones from the board |
Move 2 stones on the board |
Add 1 stone of each color to the board |
Remove 1 stone of each color from the board |
Swap the positions of 2 stones on the board |
To begin, one player is given the “Round Leader” card. This just symbolizes which player gets to choose first during the first round of the game. This card is passed clockwise after each round.
Then, starting with the Round Leader and continuing clockwise twice around the table, each player chooses and takes an action card from the table. Thus, each player gets to take two action cards. Each player must choose one Modify action and one Reward action, and the Red and Blue actions must be taken. So if all but two players have chosen their Reward actions and Red and Blue remain on the table, the last two players are forced to take these two cards.
After each player has two action cards, players exercise their Modify actions, beginning with the Round Leader and following clockwise. You can imagine that, at this point, players each have their own agendas, and they will hopefully be able to modify the board to set things up for themselves to receive a lot of points.
Finally, the two players who chose the Red and Blue actions each get a pair of cards, one with an “X” and one with an “O” (both in their respective color) which allows them each to secretly choose one. They simultaneously reveal their choices and points are awarded. Thus ends a round of the game!
Overall this was a tremendously fun experience for all of us. I was pleasantly surprised how quickly everybody got into the game, how easily they understood the rules – and yet the game was anything but simple. We felt like Fezzini and the Man in Black locked in a battle of wits.
This is exactly what I was going for, and to say I was pleased is putting it lightly.
We played for six rounds, like I said, because it became clear that certain aspects of the game weren’t quite balanced. For example, the “Thief” action allowed a player to take one point from an opponent, but this ended up being pretty weak compared to the other Reward actions. And the “neutral” Green player worked out well too, although I want to balance out the number of green stones on the board so they are more on-par with Red and Blue. Also, I realized that for six players I would want at least eight Modify and Reward actions, so that there are both more options and more opportunities for incentive points.
I would like to mention that, although I have successfully tackled the challenge of making the game fun for more than two players, this has opened up a new problem. Because it was so fun with a group of six, I’m not sure how to capture that same sense of strategy with only two players. We’ll see how this goes.
OK, so, enough about that. My next step is to do more testing! Tweak a few things and play with a new group of people. Test and tweak, test and tweak. This cycle will continue until I get a polished game design that doesn’t need any more changes. Along the way I will, ideally, bring this game to a board game Meetup here in Chicago and have some strangers play while I watch. This is an important step, especially to see how well I’ve written the instructions! I can also give them feedback questionnaires! Ooh, I’m getting all tingly just thinking about it.
I’ll try to get some more testing done soon so that I can come back with my next installment. It may be a few weeks, but I’ll be back as soon as possible, fellow artists! As Chloë would say: “Huzzah!”
(But I would never say that. Not ever.)
P.S. I would also like to mention that I lost pretty miserably. Of the six of us, I came in last with about 9 points.
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Brian will be back with another installment later. Until then, cheerio!
