What was needed to get ready for the party?
Obviously people were needed. For this I just asked friends if they would like to come play and I also put some messages on Facebook. This was a bit difficult because no one had played my game before so they had to trust that I knew what the hell I was doing and it would entertain them for hours. A lot of people also have lives to live so not many people can spare their free time to come analyses a game for me. One should also expect that several will be a no show due to unforeseen circumstances.
What about the pieces?
In total we had created 2 decks, each with 6 cards for testing (which we chose out of 300+ cards). I had to print out 360 cards, obtain 6 small pizza boxes, print 6 battle boards, 24 flotilla cards, 24 flotilla markers, 3 instruction sheets, 8 surveys, and make several vessel markers as they were deployed during play.
The cards were by far the most time consuming. That doesn't count making them in advance and just sorting through them. Matt did spend a good portion of his free, and not so free, time constructing these decks. I had also spent a total of 12 hours making each card in Photoshop, printing them all out and then cutting them each out. Some of my skin was even starting to peel way after cutting cards for so long.
Was it time well spent and worth it? Hell yeah, of course. The testing was a blast and I learned a ton.
So lets get into what happened!
Before people showed up.
After people showed up.
Eight people had wanted to come to the party, however due to weather and car issues only 5 could make it. But five people isn't bad. We had two games going on at once. Merphy vs. Pha and Jenn vs. Abby. Later in the night, when people didn't need me or Matt to watch them as much I played against Kyle.
We had constructed two deck types. One is a human deck that Matt appropriately calls "United we stand". The other deck he constructed is a Machine deck that currently is nameless. Matt started with the machine deck to try and get a handle on them. He then made the Human deck, which I feel turned out better because he had a bit of experience and knew what to expect with the second deck.
The Machine deck focuses on two aspects. The first is the idea that Machines build upon their dead. He added in a bunch of cards that had an ability called 'Salvage' which is the ability to pay the given amount of resources to have the card come back to the players hand instead of going to the graveyard. The second focus is on drones. These are easy to bring out and often band together to create a protective force.
Kyle, Abby and Pha played with the Machine decks.
The human deck had pretty much one focus. Rank up. This ability allows the player to pay the given resource cost to increase the stats and abilities of a given card. Here is an example:
Rank Up [2]
Rank 1: 2/3
Rank 2: 2/3
Rank 3: 4/5, Preemptive strike
In this example we see that in order to use the ability we need to pay 2 resources. This is currently shown in the brackets [ ]. By paying that two your vessel will then turn into a 2/3 vessel. You can continue this until the vessel can no longer rank up.
By the end of the night Kyle had won our battle with a Machine deck.
Merphy had won his battle against Pha. Merphy used the Human deck.
Abby and Jenn's game didn't last long as Jenn's parents, my parents-in-law, arrived.
To start the night I had read the instructions to every one and let them attempt to play the game with out any help from me.
Obviously this didn't work, especially since it was the first time I wrote instructions for the game so other people could play.
I had missed some valuable information, such as placing your flotilla on the battle board before the game started. (oops!)
I also didn't have anything in the instructions that explained abilities such as Rank up, preemptive strike and the rest.
Another important fact I forgot is that when any one attacks both players attack at the same time. In other words, if Merphy decided to attack with his 4/2 vessel, against Pha's 2/2 vessel both would be destroyed.
But now I know what to fix and to keep a keener eye out for next time.
I also didn't run the instructions by any one before the testing, as it wast he last thing I did. Next time I'll have some people proof read it to see if it makes sense to them.
After reading the instructions and seeing that people aren't going to be able to play, I then just explained the game as they played. I explained Sector mode and who to go about playing in that mode while they were in it and I explained Territory while they were in that mode. I did mention the modes do change, although stay relatively the same.
Doing it this way made the game much easier to comprehend with only a few hiccups.
by their second battle, Merphy and Pha were practically pros a the game. That second battle didn't even take long to get to.
Kyle and nearly no problems either. Kyle had played the game before so he knew how to set up and get going early. The only things he had issues with (and that I had not thought of before) was the ability to play traps.
As I had thought Player1 would play traps on Player2's turn with the resources that Player 1 stock piled from their previous turn.
Kyle had suggested that instead a player should be able to discard for resources during any ones turn, and then play traps.
I agreed to this, feeling that was a much better way of handling that. He then proceeded to kick my ass.
What did I get out of this?
Pha, Kyle, Merphy, Matt and I had a long discussion about the game. I think it ended up being a 2 hour discussion.
One of the big topics was how Humans felt over powered compared to the Mech deck. The reason for this being the Ranking ability didn't feel like it costed as much as it should have. The other problem being that the Machine deck was trying to go two directions at once and didn't go far enough either way.
Other issues with this was that Pha didn't know what Salvage was due to my failure in explaining it. But either way the deck didn't capitalize on that ability enough to make it much of a game changer.
We discussed how to change the Mech deck to fit its goals more by creating more cards and swapping out cards that didn't fit the bill. The goal of the Mech deck being: They gain victory by building upon their dead. In other words when a mech is destroyed it should in some way help advance the whole.
We had discussed that there shouldn't be cards in which the board is cleared, unless it clears all vessels, including your own. Many of Pha and Merphy's battles ended in a stalemate due to these cards. Instead we decided making more trap cards that allowed the flotilla to defend itself more. Also adding an ability for flotilla where you pay X amount of resources for the flotilla to shoot a beam that deals 2 or so damage to a vessel or a row.
As it was traps needed to be deployed where your flotilla was sitting, then you'd have to move away from it. Much like one would set a mine. However, Merphy suggested allowing flotilla to put traps in adjacent hexes to increase the use of them and effectiveness of them. I personally loved this idea and will be implementing it the future.
We also decided to change how battles are fought, slightly.
The change is one can move into a hex occupied by an enemy. Move is not to be confused with Warp, I'll explain.
So if some one moves into an adjacent hex, occupied by a enemy then the one who moved attacks first. The first attacker can't move their vessels, but can orientate them before attacking.
Let me give you a bit of reference here. When a battle starts in territory mode each player places their vessels down on the same board in the first 3 rows closest to them. While doing this they can't see where their opponent is placing their vessels. Once all of the vessels have been placed the entire board is revealed to every one and battle continues.
Since the first attacker already moved to get into the same hex they can't move again to re-position their vessels. However, they can choose which direction the vessels will shoot. The attacker attacks and then the opponents turn begins.
What about warping?
Warping is an ability all flotilla can do which allows them to move anywhere on the map. Moving only allows you to move one hex.
Warping also ends your turn, so if you are warping then you are fairly confident about your fleet and its ability to destroy the enemy.
Well that's the sum up of the party. Yeah, I know, not much of a sum up with how long this is, but a lot happened.
I can't wait for next session, which I believe will happen in two weeks. Until then I'll be adjusting the decks to work better. Checking on the art work. Scouting for more artists and programmers and overall working my fingers to the bone.
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Thank you for reading!
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