Another day, another complete rewrite


We played "Grab the Loot!" at the BGDG tonight. The feedback I received was excellent. Since I just redesigned it from the ground up, I was really expecting big changes to come from this playtest, and I got what I was expecting.

Here are my notes - and what I think about them right now:
  • "Swap with another player" fix verbiage - Swap with the captain, swap with a player, and trade with a player are all possible actions. There should be three verbs, not two.
  • There are not strategic decisions (all are tactical) - This one hurt, however I took it graciously and considered it as a call to increase the strategic decisions that are available in the game. Taken that way, it gives me something to work with, and I will do it.
  • Treasure scarcity is not felt - I can easily fix this by making fewer treasures.
  • Swapping between players should be more common - This is also an easy fix, and a great idea. Player interaction is king in this type of game.
  • Later revealed greeds are worth more points than early revealed ones. - this seems to complicate scoring, but add to the "press your luck" element. I like it, so I will probably go with it.
  • Flip up a card and take the top action and make good actions in random location as an action if you like no actions. - This was to make the "all my options suck" less likely - it replaces it with a press your luck action.
  • Add in multiple copies of each card to greed, if multiple cards showed The latter card pair gets shot - again, adds complexity, but takes away the "walking deadman" when a player realizes 2 turns from the end of the game that they cannot possibly win.
  • Add to the "chest" to make cards better and more dangerous, make a player action to do that. - This would increase player interaction, and allow for players to try to kill other players or to improve the value of their cards. This is a huge change, and it is probably one that I will try because it sounds interesting.
  • rolling actions - Make only 6 or so actions visible at a time, and if new actions come out the oldest ones are discarded (including all meeples on them)
I also had an idea - make it so that there is only one action per card - with three slots per action still. This would make for less reading.

After I got home and read my notes, I think that I will end up implementing all of the ideas, however the "chest" idea is the one that I am the least confident of. I will definitely try it out, however I think that the other ones have practically no chance of backfiring. The "chest" idea could backfire, so I will watch it carefully when I playtest it to see how it goes.

Also, I finally came up with a new action for armor in "The Perfect Moment".


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