Better Bugs

The last playtest was very constructive. The game flowed like an old engine wanting to start but sputtering to much to really get going. The problem turned out to be a wonkey turn rhythm. The heart of each turn is simultaneous play which seems to flow well, but each turn begins with a purchasing phase based on turn order. This disrupts the flow and takes the players right out of the immersive theme of the game. I yanked this part out and tossed it aside. In version #4, the purchasing is triggered individually with an action card, just like all the other actions. Turns should be simpler and more consistent now.

Another problem was the turn order token which is periodically passed from player to player. It was awkward, disruptive, and didn’t work well. I tossed that into the scrap bin as well. I’m working on a player order randomizer which can be implemented whenever required to resolve the order of playing actions. It will be pretty slick once I figure out exactly how to do it. Meanwhile, players can just draw colored tokens from a bag to determine play order.

The worst of the problems was the excessive randomness in the game. You could be doing everything right and still get beaten down by random events. There were actually four randomizing elements in the previous version. That’s enough to ruin anybody’s day.

Players drew random tiles from a bag to build their web, some of these provided much needed food, and others did nothing but expand the web. Draw too many of the latter and you’ll end up starving. This was not acceptable. The tile placement should be a decision point, not a punishment. I eliminated the bag, modified the way potential food points are implemented, and stacked the tiles in front of the players so they can choose which tiles to use. This even allowed me to implement a new headwind mechanism which I will describe later.

The second randomizer was the rotating action card market. This did nothing but handcuff the players. The economic constraints and the new card which allows you to buy or sell only one card is more than enough to mediate the market. Having a limited choice is not necessary. Having all the card types available (but in limited supplies) also helps promote asymmetric play and should make the game more fun.

The random draw bag containing the food and special events is definitely staying in the game. It adds loads of tension and a fun push-your-luck element to the game. This, along with the “Wiggle Die” which is occasionally used to determine if the bugs escape from your web, should provide just enough randomness in the game to make it fun and a little unpredictable.

The last playtesters wanted more player interaction. I had already planned on doing this, once I get the game flow right, so I have done this in the latest version. I’ve added a starting card which will enable every player to mess with an opponent’s web as well as a couple advanced cards which players can buy if they want to be more aggressive.

Finally, one last flaw reared its ugly head during the last playtest. There tends to be a slight snowball effect, when one player gains an advantage. A player could possibly gain a runaway lead and be un-stoppable. Rather than a blatant catch-up mechanism, which might seem contrived, I decided to implement a headwind mechanism to deal with this. In version #3, as each new spider was added to the web, an additional maintenance cost was un-covered, increasing the overhead costs of the web. I took this one step further and added an additional maintenance cost under the seven stacks of tiles in front of the player, This will hopefully slow down the run-away leader just enough to keep them in check.

The costing of items is currently seat-of-the-pants guessing. I plan on focusing on this once I get the game flow right. You can’t tune an engine until you get it running reasonably smooth, so the accurate costing of actions and other components might have to take a back seat for now.

I hope all these changes have the effect I desire, but that’s what testing is all about. Fingers crossed on version #4. You can check out the TTS prototype here:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2554703613

Feel free to comment or drop me a line.