2016-04-05

Settling on More Exploration

My game development time got sidetracked a little over the last week as I, for some reason best known to my subconscious, decided to put together a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle for the first time in my life.  I think that is out of my system now, and I have ticked off an item in what might be the world's most boring bucket list.  So now I can get back to something a bit more creative...

Having posted about how I put together prototype cards using nanDECK, I printed and cut out a set of cards for Explore and Settle (that name really must change!), comprising 9 sea cards and 27 other terrains, and I sleeved these in different coloured sleeves.  As an aside, I usually put my cards into opaque backed sleeves, which keep everything neat when my cutting is a bit on the rough side, and add enough stiffness to standard 160gsm cardstock to make adequate playing cards.  Anyway, I also made a sheet of counters representing each of the resource types, which could be used as resource production locations; the idea is that when the resource tab on a card gets covered, it stops producing unless one of these production tokens has been placed on the location.
Seems quite strong to control a row like blue is doing there.

I'm rambling.  A few wooden components and cardboard coins from the stuff box makes this pile of stuff into a playable prototype.

So far I have done some solo testing of the game, and it seems to basically work, but I'm struggling on my own to make half decent moves to see how things go, and I don't know yet if other people will find my resource rules too fiddly; you don't actually gather resources, but have to set up (or pay for) supply lines of sorts.  The game also doesn't yet have a real "spark" to get it going, but I have a couple of ideas to go with which I may talk about in another post.  I really need to try this with actual real people again.

Fortunately there is another London Sunday playtest session coming up, so I'm planning on taking whatever I have of this game and seeing what feedback I can get, which should help me in the right direction.

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