A few weeks ago I posted about a new casual game idea I was testing. Yesterday at the Unpub within Gameholecon I got a chance to try it out further, and thanks to great feedback from Andrew Hanson and Steven Dast the game has progressed and somewhat morphed.

The game was playable as it was, but a few of things struck us as being suboptimal. The betting phase seemed disjointed from the rest of the game, and the goal of a 5-card poker hand seemed restricting. It also seemed difficult to get new cards into play. After much deliberation and some additional play testing we think we addressed the issues while maintaining the heart of the game. I've dubbed the new iteration Trick Rummy.

Rather than being constrained to just two poker hands to receive a payout, in the new game you are dealt 10 cards and have to get at least nine of them into sets. The sets are of the typical Rummy variety; three or more of a kind or suited runs of three or more. This gives the players much more flexibility in choosing what cards to keep.

For the betting phase problem a different mechanism entirely was adopted. In some trick taking games it is common to bid on how many tricks you can take and/or to get the lead. We incorporated this idea in the following way. First, there is an ante. In order to have the game ramp up over time, this amount is based on the number of face up cards any player has on the table. Then the players bid in auction style. Only the winning bidder puts additional money into the pot. They get to lead. Essentially, they are betting how much more likely they will be to win the hand if they have the lead.

This notion was counterintuitive to me. It seems like you'd need the other players to put in money in order for coins to change hands. In practice, however, this system seems to work. Increasing the ante over time will address the free rider problem where people never bid and ignore the whole trick taking aspect of the game.

As far as the set collection aspect, the primary issue was a lack of new cards entering play. It was easy to get stuck in a situation where you need a particular card but just had to wait for it to appear by luck given very few opportunities. To address this, additional cards are added to the draft. The number is equal to the number of players. In addition, drafting continues for a number of rounds equal to the number of players minus one. This is for scalability because with more players there are likely to be more tricks taken during the trick taking phase.

As usual, the resulting game is different from what I would have come up with on my own. However, I think these differences are positive. Having other designers work on an idea with you is a great experience. If you haven't attended a Protospiel or Unpub, you don't know what you're missing!

In my neck of the woods sheepshead is a very common card game. Two things in particular are nice about it: you can play without a whole lot of attention (a "beer and pretzels" game), and it keeps a running tally, so "games" can last hours or even years.

But those same advantages also come with down sides. For mediocre players most plays are fairly pre-determined. Long running tallies mean there is little chance for the loser to catch up, and there is never any logical place to stop other than who dealt first.

To address these concerns I thought about merging aspects of sheepshead with aspects of poker. The average poker player has many decisions to weigh during betting and card selection. The fact that people can go bust means there are natural stopping points to games.

It was with these factors in mind that I started thinking of my latest game (as yet untitled.) My merger game takes the betting and set collection aspects of poker and combines them with the trick taking aspect of sheepshead. To make things more interesting and strategic, a card drafting mechanic is also thrown in.

Here's how it works. The cards are two standard poker decks, jokers included. Players start with X amount of money or chips and maintain an 8-card hand. The game goes until someone has collected a hand with 5 of a kind or a 5-card straight-flush, at which point a payout occurs, and play can continue or end.

Each hand begins by flipping over a card from the top of the deck. Its suit determines the trump for this hand. Then there is a betting phase. The standard ante is one, only one time around, and a maximum bet or raise of three. Players who drop out of betting can still play the hand, but they do not get the payout if they win.

Next, a sheepshead style hand is played. Rather than diamonds and queens/jacks being trump, the flipped up suit is trump. Rather than counting points, the winner is the first person to win two tricks. The winning player is first for the card draft and assuming they stayed in the betting, gets the pot.

The card draft redistributes cards played during the preceding hand. All the taken tricks plus the initial trump card are put face up on the table, and players take turns choosing one. Chosen cards stay face up on the table in front of the player and count toward their hand. This goes for two rounds regardless of how many tricks were played.

Finally, players draw back up to eight total cards including those face up. At some point a player will have collected 5 of a kind or a 5-card straight-flush. All other players must pay them; 5 for the former or 10 for the latter. At that point a new game can begin (not resetting the money/chips), or play can end.

The game has gone through one 3-player play-test, which worked out a few kinks and clarified some details. It also proved to be quite fun and much more strategic than sheepshead. You have to balance playing your powerful cards versus saving them for the big payout. There is also the tradeoff between offense and defense during drafting. But the game still has a "beer and pretzels" feel. Players can skip a hand and still stay in the game, and a losing player still has chances to catch up. There can be a running tally, but there are logical ending points.

Hopefully the game can get a full test next month at my buddies' "Bacon Weekend". There will definitely be beer and probably pretzels. And maybe the jackpot will include some bacon.

A small annoyance in writing about gaming is the usage of the word for preliminary game play–play of an unfinished game in order to test it. Yes, I'm talking about playtesting. Or am I talking about play testing?

It seems like playtest should be written together as a compound word, but when I do so, autocorrect adds a space. If I insist, I'm rewarded with an ugly red squiggly.

Writing "play test" makes the activity seem less specific. Aesthetically, it's just not as appealing to me. Maybe I'll start using "play-test". It has the feel of a compound without being auto-incorrected.

So this is the reason while you'll see a variety of spellings for "play-test". Regardless of how you write it, the important thing is to do it and do it and do it again.

What do you think is the best way to write "play-test"?

We conducted the first play test of Bid, Bet, Buy last night. A few kinks became clear. The main issue with the game was balance between the odds for different bets. This might take some time to tweak.

There was also some confusion regarding how the Bid and Bet interact. The conclusion was that if there is a winner bidder, the Bets for that number are void. When the bets do go through, the payout is only one per token per die. So if there are three people on the number 5 Bet, for example, and two 5s are rolled, the first two players get a coin, but the third does not.

The "buy" mechanic has also been rethought. Rather than a progressively increasing scale for Dice and End Game, the game will have spots for players to increase or decrease the number. For example, the number of dice starts at six. One player could pay for +2, but another person might put on -3, so the net result would be five dice.

Overall, the game was about what I expected. There is some strategy and gamesmanship with the placement of tokens, but in the end a lot of it is pure luck. The rolling of a big handful of dice is exciting though, and I think that makes it fun.

Standing next to a group of people, instructing them how to play your game is one thing. Sending out just the game and rules and having the players fend for themselves is a very different animal. The latter is what's called blind play testing.

Archon Arena has been through quite a lot of in person play testing, but up until now no blind play tests have occurred. That is about to change!

The folks who frequent the chat area of The Game Crafter recently set up a playtest circle. Basically, designers post the games they have available. Others sign up to test them. The game is mailed to the first person, who plays it and gives feedback. Then they mail it to the next person on the list. It's a bit like a gaming a chain letter with no money involved.

This morning I put Archon Arena up on the list and almost immediately had two replies for players. It's very exciting to get the game out to a broader audience and hopefully get some constructive feedback.

So off I go to mail out the game. Then, I just have to sit back and wait for the (hopefully) good responses.

Image credit: Gastev - http://flic.kr/p/5vBCdn

I don't imagine anyone cares, but just to keep a record of these things, I figured out answers to some of my previous problems with TBD.

First, movement. I mentioned the problem of diagonals and my partial solution of a grid with octagons overlaid. I found an easy way to handle diagonal movement. It is only allowed within an octagon, not between them. This perfectly fits the movement I wanted and is an easy way to express and understand it.

As for the deadly nature of the game, I decided that one-blow character death would be no fun. I've devised the following mechanic- on any attack, the defender can choose to make one of the wounds "superficial". It lasts through the battle but not beyond. To do this in game terms the player must discard a defense card face down so it is removed from play for the battle. I like this because it imposes a penalty, gives the player more options, and will often avoid the one attack player kill.

I feel like battles took too long, so I'm lowering the base to hit target from 14 to 10. I also devised a point system for character creation. It will take some tweaking, but it's a start.

I have a "play date" set up for Sunday, and perhaps we'll get to TBD. It'd be the first test with another person, and we'll have to see if it's any fun!

As I continue to playtest TBD, I've been thinking about the process of playtesting itself. It seems to me it's a more complicated process than at first it might appear.

A good playtest should have conscious goals in mind. In my experience, the nature of these goals changes as time goes on. Playtesting can be broken into stages.

First, there are usually solo trials to test out game mechanics and refine the overall theme of the game. These may be split into mini tests to see whether a particular aspect will work. In ITTBZ for example, this involved refining and ultimately eliminating a weather mechanic that was a base part of the early game.

When solo testing indicates that the game is playable, it's time to invite other people. It's important to have open minded playtesters who will be willing to give constructive feedback and realize the game is a work in progress. The key to this phase is to determine: is the game fun and does it have potential. If the answer to either is no, it may be time to scrap the idea or radically rethink it.

If your game survives this far, you enter intensive regression testing. This means shoring up any weak spots and making sure the mechanics are rock solid. A later subphase involves searching out and correcting any minor niggling errors.

Usually the intensive playtest involves a core group of people who are able to dedicate the time to play regularly. In this last phase, it's time to spring your baby upon the world. First, introduce the game to people who have never played before. Often explaining the rules to a fresh set of ears will bring up questions or ambiguities that have gone unnoticed up until this point. Finally, have people play the game with no assistance from you, relying solely on the written directions.

Obviously the fine tuning of a game may continue even beyond when it is published. Keeping in mind the outlined sequence of testing can help you get to that point. It's a long journey from concept to complete game, but in the end it's worth it to sit down and play your very own creation.

The concepts and base mechanics for the new game have come along nicely. I've gotten to the point of solo playtesting, always a difficult, time consuming activity. As long as the game is decent it can also be fun.
Today I played a battle between a halfling thief type and a giant, one of my favorite stereotypical battles. The first time, the thief tried to stay in close and avoid the giant's club which requires more space. Unfortunately, this didn't work out so well because he only got one attack while the giant slowly beat him to a pulp.
The second battle, the halfling avoided the slow moving giant as long as possible. This meant the giant was more fatigued (fewer cards) than the halfling. Unfortunately, through one fairly lucky set of rolls the giant bashed in the halfling's head in one swell foop. I had expected the giant to win, but it would have been nice for the halfling to get in a hit or two first.

So here's a summary of what I've figured out and what I'm still working on, in no particular order.

• I think the basic mechanics are sound, but the characters had too many cards. Even when running around the room they only slowly got winded. 
  
• Fitness/stamina is super important and may be difficult to balance. I settled on a base recovery of 1.
  
• The game can be very deadly! Not sure if that is good or bad. 
  
• Having defense free, fatigue wise, might be the wrong choice. I'll have to try it the other way or find a way to "half do" it. I guess even if you're resting you'd have your defenses up, but actually dodging would be tiring..
  
• Movement is a PitB. Using diagonals as a single move is silly, but the alternative doesn't work well either. I devised an octagonal grid with squares overlaid that is mostly mathematically sound, but it might be too confusing. 
  
• Balancing everything for this game is going to be tough. For my next series of tests I'll try to make equal characters, probably the standard halfling thief, human fighter, dwarf cleric, elf archer, and or gnome mage. If I can get them pretty balanced it will go a long way toward figuring out the monsters. 
  

Those are the main things I thought of. For now, the game is going as TBD. We'll see how it continues to pan out.

The other day I was in the chat room of The Game Crafter, and a couple people started talking about an idea for a mech battle type game ala Battletech but with cards. It wasn't so much the specifics they mentioned but just the theme that got me thinking about some interesting mechanics for such a game. This post contains my preliminary ideas. It may be a bit rambling, so bear with me.

When designing I Thought There'd Be Zombies! I happened to draw a 9x6 grid for the game board. Nine times six is 54, the number of cards in a deck. Then, when I found The Game Crafter's custom mini cards, half the size of poker cards, I did the math, and 9x6 cards fit perfectly within the 18x18" game board that the company also makes. Such serendipity, it's like it was meant to be.

I mention this because playing with full bridge size cards as we have been requires a very large board, taking up most of my table. What I'd really like is a prototype with the actual size board and cards. So I priced it out: 96 mini cards=$8.67. Game board=$10. Markers=$2.40. Box and insert=$3.40. Handling=89¢. Total=$23.36. Not bad.

The only problem is I have no art for this game, which leads me to the title of this post... I found some cheesy Halloween clipart on clker.com, and I think it will do for my first prototype. It will be nice to play the game as meant to be, with the correct size cards and board. For the time being I can live with cheesy artwork.