More testing

This post is about the second test of the board game.

This test was performed with players being students and alumni from the university at one of their playtesting days. Based on some of the feedback and notes I had from the first public playtest, I tried to implement the following changes:

The amount of pieces with both team’s connections on them was increased. These were both the straight and curved pieces that covered both teams’ connections. The intent here was to keep the board from hitting too many ‘one team only’ areas. This worked to some extent as teams attempting to disrupt the other team mostly drew these and it kept options more open.

I added the following rule: “If a piece has a non-connected side on it, it can not be placed at the edge of the board so a connecting edge leads away from the board”. This eliminated some of the issue, but the pieces with turns on them for both teams could still be used to end that route for the opposing team.

An extra rule I implemented, both to lessen the impact of the above, but also to add more interactivity to the board, was to add a D6 dice roll at the start of each player's turn. On a roll of 6, a player can choose to swap any two pieces, except the starting pieces, on the board, as long as both can be placed in a position that makes them both legal. This drew mixed feedback. Players liked the interactivity, but it led to a sharp increase in board complexity as many pieces are now potential future swap setups to take into account.

Overall feedback was that players still like the core idea and that “there is something there”.

Next steps >>

Testing some ‘extreme’ options to get a feel for what happens and how the player feedback is on those. I will be testing a version that is only one type of connection to get a feel for how that plays out for the teams. The 3D printer has been warmed up and I will be making a new round of pieces on another base color plastic to be able to keep this variant separate from the two distinct routes one.