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I thought I was at the tweaking stage of this game, but when one of the playtesters’ most positive comments is “Well….I didn’t hate it…..” it’s time to take a good look under the hood and start yanking out the bad parts of the game. I know there are really fun bits in this game, but they are currently buried somewhere under the convoluted, redundant and totally unnecessary mechanisms which should be chucked to the curb like a useless old tire.
I added a programming mechanism to the game, simply because I love programmed actions and I thought that the occasional time that you out-guessed your opponent would be really cool. This hampered the players actions and the structured turns required for the programming, revealing and execution of the actions slowed the game to a snail’s pace. It did much more harm than good…..Into the trash bin it goes!
I have this awful habit of trying to control the players behavior with more rules and constraints. These often go against the natural flow of the game and tend to handcuff the players so they can’t do what they really want to do. I have to remember that, if the game is designed right, it will keep itself on track and often control the players indirectly.
One example of this was the limited abilities of the action cards in this game. One let you “spin” or create a web space, and the other reinforced the frail web spaces to protect them from occasional weather events. I limited these actions to one or two spaces. This handcuffed the players and made them feel that they couldn’t build their webs fast enough. The tight energy economy and the physical limitations of expanding adjacent to the player’s spiders already limited the actions, so the explicit limits were unnecessary. I removed these limits on the cards so the players are free to expand as fast as they want. The limited resources and physical limitations are enough to keep the game in check.
The convoluted turn procedure of placing, programming, and revealing the cards is gone. The players simply play a card and perform an action. This will greatly speed up the game and let the players concentrate on the area control and engine building mechanisms of the game. One of my worst ideas to date was a randomized turn order for each turn. It was supposed to balance out the first player advantage, but all it did was confuse and irritate the players. This was abandoned at the beginning of the play test and replaced with a first player pawn which was passed forward with each turn.
The individual spiders each had a unique ability, but it was unclear exactly when to use it in relation to the action turn order. I eliminated these and moved these abilities to the action cards. This way, each spider has their own small unique set of action cards. This simplifies the rules and enhances the asymmetry of the various spiders.
The expansion of the webs was very slow. Players played cautiously and slowly without taking too many chances. This ended up causing a slow moving and boring experience. One of my playtesters “Bert” suggested providing “bait” spaces on the board, rather than letting the players place the bug baits wherever they wanted. This would incentivise players to expand faster and compete for critical areas. Thanks “Bert”, I have implemented something like this in the latest version.
Last of all, I’ve made a few graphic design improvements to clarify game play and create a more intuitive and cohesive look. All told, I think I’ve increased the play speed of this game at least twofold. This was necessary, in order to make the push-your-luck elements of the game really stand out. They were almost nonexistent in the last version because it was such a slog.
It’s now updated and ready for the next playtest. I hope it goes much smoother and is not just broken in a new and different way. LOL . Fingers crossed, I’ll see you on Tabletop Simulator.
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