It’s Alive

Hey, It actually worked!

Version number five worked better than expected. After only four official playtests, I appear to have a fully functional game which shows some promise. I know I’ve said this before with the fight night game, only to send it to the scrap pile a week or two later. I’ve also said this about my Nova Raiders game which is currently sitting on the shelf, and may just fade away into mediocrity. I really mean it this time. LOL

In the initial part of each turn, players move their spiders to a new position in their webs. This provides a hint to the other players as to what you may have planned. They then place two cards face down from their hands which will determine which actions each player will be performing. The cards are then revealed one at a time in turn order as the actions are performed. This provided for a great deal of bluffing and trying to second guess your opponent.

The drawing of the events tiles, such as bug strikes on the webs, swarms and storms provided a great push-your-luck experience. Players tended to build more frail webs which was due to the new and revised action cards. Players were constantly aware of the storm which could come and wipe away their frail webs before they had a chance to reinforce them.

The swarm event tile provided some real bug feasts which pushed players into an overabundant state, forcing them to expand their spider family whether they were ready or not. The extra overhead costs of the larger web and spider family were actually a detriment if your family grew too fast. The occasional famine was another thing to watch out for. A famine forced one player into a “Degrade” state where their web started to slowly degenerate. They were able to recover in a couple of turns, however, and were going like gangbusters soon enough.

This is all accomplished through a really tight energy economy which each player has to manage. Players try to keep things on an even keel, through feast and famine, where, either extreme, a surplus of energy or an energy crisis can force you into a precarious position. This seemed to work as expected and is one of the key elements of the game.

Limiting the players hands to five cards created some asymmetrical behavior, but it may have been a bit too much. It seemed too limiting in the last playtest. I’ll have to try different initial card counts to get the right balance. The introduction of new cards acquired in the market didn’t happen fast enough either. New cards were added to the discard pile like in a traditional deck building game. I will change this to adding the new cards to the player’s hand. This will allow for more tactical opportunities.

The different spider powers were cool and intuitive. Resetting only one spider power per “Home” action seemed to curtail any overpowered spider behaviors. I have to take a close look at the spider powers with a focus on tactical play. This has to be worked on next iteration. The spider powers were great fun, however, when they did work.

The action cards also need to be re-worked for more balanced tactical play. The building of the webs works well at this point, except for the slow rate of building them. Maybe the “Baiting” of the webs over an existing web is a bad idea. I’ll try adding the bait as a new web space, which will increase the web expansion rate. The webs seemed to be a bit too static in the last play test.

The new rule we introduced in the last play test, of discarding a card to gain one energy worked great. It was the magic bullet which stopped the energy economy from crashing. Another new rule regarding the swarm tile, also made the event tiles work much smoother. I just need to modify the mix of events slightly to make the game go a bit quicker.

The last game lasted about 2 hours. Given the game complexity, it ran too long and overstayed its welcome. I have to get the time closer to an hour or slightly over that. This can be accomplished, I’m sure.

The next task, is to work out the tactical play between the players so that there is a good amount of choices and strategies, and there isn’t one dominant strategy. I also need to look at the cost and valuation of all the cards, which will be a blend of both mathematical and perceived values. This is where I really have to roll up my sleeves and get to work. Wish me luck, I can use it.