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Well, maybe not faster. But for this Frameshift Friday, I focused on overhauling the first scenario to make it feel a bit meatier. This meant doubling nearly everything in the scenario.
Frameshift is a story-driven solitaire board game about change played over a series of sequential scenarios, or "Evolutions." Each Evolution adds or removes rules from the game as the characters and situations evolve. The outcome of one Evolution can have a minor or major effect on subsequent Evolutions (though not necessarily the next one in line). It's strongly suggested that you play each Evolution only once, and in order, without looking ahead, though you are welcome to replay the entire cycle again once you've finished. When design is finished, I plan to release Frameshift as a series of free print-and-play files with a possible physical version after that.
Last week, the inaugural Frameshift Friday (where I devote myself to prototyping, design and playtesting for at least a few hours a week), I made a prototype version of Evolution 0 and played it about 6-7 times, maybe more. I even had an impromptu outside playtest when a couple of friends came over on Sunday. After the first play, in which I changed a couple of major rules and scribbled over half the cards, Evolution 0 seemed...pretty solid.
This disturbed me. I have nothing to change, nothing to tweak? I must be doing something wrong!
My one complaint about the scenario was that it felt a little (okay, a lot) quicker than I had imagined. It takes place over 15 turns. Each turn, the player is allowed a maximum of 4 actions--up to 2 movement and up to 2 "interface," or using the special ability of the current location. In practice, the game takes about 15 minutes to play, and feels very light.
Since this is a tutorial scenario, "very light" was fine by me, but as I was thinking about the future scenarios, I realized that 15 turns just wasn't going to cut it. So with this next prototype, I modified that number to 30 turns. But because the Molecular Sequencing, one of the central mechanics of the scenario, is tied to the turn timer, this also meant doubling the size of the Molecules deck (which probably needed to happen anyway). And so forth.
Is It Big Enough?
This brings me to an interesting question: what is the appropriate size for a solo game? As a gamer, I know I am drawn (irrationally) to those games that are absolutely overflowing with bits: Arkham Horror with all the expansions has a physical presence I can't resist. I like the sheer voluminousness of the game more than I like the game itself! Android is another favorite that's got a small forest's worth of cards in it. Ditto for Mage Knight Board Game and Robinson Crusoe: Adventure on the Cursed Island.
On the other hand, one of my design goals with this game was to keep it as small and elegant as possible. Part of this is just in recognition of my skills as a game designer--I don't know if I have what it takes to juggle 10 50-card decks and make it all balanced. Part of it is in recognition of the fact that publishers are going to prefer a game with fewer bits, and if it's delivered as a print-and-play, fewer cards are better there, as well. And part of it is in recognition of the fact that bigger is not always better.
As a gamer, I'm drawn to big games that seem to offer a ton of variety. But is variety really what makes a game replayable? Betrayal at House on the Hill has 50 potential endgame scenarios, each of which plays out very differently. But that means interrupting the game to learn new rules the first 50 times you play. It also means, for me, completely whiffing the strategy the first time you play each haunt, and then not being able to replay the same haunt until you've forgotten what you did wrong the first time.
I think this last point is true of other games as well. Space Alert does not have that many threat cards, especially when you separate them out by color and internal/external and serious/normal. There are probably something like 4 in each pile by that point. It has just enough to keep the game feeling fresh and unpredictable, but few enough that you can actually improve at the game by getting to know the threats and how to counter them.
As I play more games, I'm getting more and more into eurogames, which tend to go for a more elegant approach that is lower on components but still endlessly replayable. In Le Havre, only minor elements change between each game, with the same basic buildings being seen every time (it's still a big game, components-wise). In The Castles of Burgundy, you will see all of the knowledge tiles after 2-3 games, and every other tile is a duplicate, but the order they come out and the board you're playing on makes each game feel different. In both of these games, I feel as though I have gotten into a groove where I am comfortable playing the game and can get fully immersed in play.
So, what is your opinion? What is the "right size" for a solo game? As a gamer, do you ever find your eyes bigger than your stomach?
P.S: Happy International Tabletop Day!
Well, maybe not faster. But for this Frameshift Friday, I focused on overhauling the first scenario to make it feel a bit meatier. This meant doubling nearly everything in the scenario.
Frameshift is a story-driven solitaire board game about change played over a series of sequential scenarios, or "Evolutions." Each Evolution adds or removes rules from the game as the characters and situations evolve. The outcome of one Evolution can have a minor or major effect on subsequent Evolutions (though not necessarily the next one in line). It's strongly suggested that you play each Evolution only once, and in order, without looking ahead, though you are welcome to replay the entire cycle again once you've finished. When design is finished, I plan to release Frameshift as a series of free print-and-play files with a possible physical version after that.
Last week, the inaugural Frameshift Friday (where I devote myself to prototyping, design and playtesting for at least a few hours a week), I made a prototype version of Evolution 0 and played it about 6-7 times, maybe more. I even had an impromptu outside playtest when a couple of friends came over on Sunday. After the first play, in which I changed a couple of major rules and scribbled over half the cards, Evolution 0 seemed...pretty solid.
This disturbed me. I have nothing to change, nothing to tweak? I must be doing something wrong!
My one complaint about the scenario was that it felt a little (okay, a lot) quicker than I had imagined. It takes place over 15 turns. Each turn, the player is allowed a maximum of 4 actions--up to 2 movement and up to 2 "interface," or using the special ability of the current location. In practice, the game takes about 15 minutes to play, and feels very light.
Since this is a tutorial scenario, "very light" was fine by me, but as I was thinking about the future scenarios, I realized that 15 turns just wasn't going to cut it. So with this next prototype, I modified that number to 30 turns. But because the Molecular Sequencing, one of the central mechanics of the scenario, is tied to the turn timer, this also meant doubling the size of the Molecules deck (which probably needed to happen anyway). And so forth.
Is It Big Enough?
This brings me to an interesting question: what is the appropriate size for a solo game? As a gamer, I know I am drawn (irrationally) to those games that are absolutely overflowing with bits: Arkham Horror with all the expansions has a physical presence I can't resist. I like the sheer voluminousness of the game more than I like the game itself! Android is another favorite that's got a small forest's worth of cards in it. Ditto for Mage Knight Board Game and Robinson Crusoe: Adventure on the Cursed Island.
On the other hand, one of my design goals with this game was to keep it as small and elegant as possible. Part of this is just in recognition of my skills as a game designer--I don't know if I have what it takes to juggle 10 50-card decks and make it all balanced. Part of it is in recognition of the fact that publishers are going to prefer a game with fewer bits, and if it's delivered as a print-and-play, fewer cards are better there, as well. And part of it is in recognition of the fact that bigger is not always better.
As a gamer, I'm drawn to big games that seem to offer a ton of variety. But is variety really what makes a game replayable? Betrayal at House on the Hill has 50 potential endgame scenarios, each of which plays out very differently. But that means interrupting the game to learn new rules the first 50 times you play. It also means, for me, completely whiffing the strategy the first time you play each haunt, and then not being able to replay the same haunt until you've forgotten what you did wrong the first time.
I think this last point is true of other games as well. Space Alert does not have that many threat cards, especially when you separate them out by color and internal/external and serious/normal. There are probably something like 4 in each pile by that point. It has just enough to keep the game feeling fresh and unpredictable, but few enough that you can actually improve at the game by getting to know the threats and how to counter them.
As I play more games, I'm getting more and more into eurogames, which tend to go for a more elegant approach that is lower on components but still endlessly replayable. In Le Havre, only minor elements change between each game, with the same basic buildings being seen every time (it's still a big game, components-wise). In The Castles of Burgundy, you will see all of the knowledge tiles after 2-3 games, and every other tile is a duplicate, but the order they come out and the board you're playing on makes each game feel different. In both of these games, I feel as though I have gotten into a groove where I am comfortable playing the game and can get fully immersed in play.
So, what is your opinion? What is the "right size" for a solo game? As a gamer, do you ever find your eyes bigger than your stomach?
P.S: Happy International Tabletop Day!