Yet Another Brain Dump

I took The Citadel of Madness to the Board Game Design Guild meeting, and played it again. This  time with entirely new playtesters, so I got to see what a first time player feels again. I asked for first time players, so I am glad that I got them.

Here are my notes (*** means that I am going to do these things first)

  • Level up converters?
  • Feels slow to take one action at a time
  • Keep track of who to pay?
  • Swap white cubes for brown***
  • End score: 17-1-2-6
  • Encourage people to build more machines - how?
    • Award points for more machines? ***
  • Hiding actions in rooms failed - the game is just complex
  • Drafting one card feels lame***
    • take multiple cards as an action ***
    • pay extra to take extra cards ***
    • free cards every turn?
    • drafting (or crappy actions) yield time
  • balance energy felt more valuable than others
    • remove balance
    • balance costs 2 generic energy
  • don't make start device give specific energy
    • starting device not able to upgrade?
  • minions that can upgrade
    • auto refresh minions
  • activate all your minions as an action***
  • upgrading is luck based?
    • dice for damaging machines?
    • repair damage
    • "failure is not an option"
  • build the citadel up from the bottom
    • high rooms cost more
    • only have devices = to number of rooms built
    • rooms attach to other rooms with color scheme edges
  • energy storage caps out so that you need to spend it ***
  • repair rooms at the end of turn
  • splitting machines
I have also been involved in a 2 player board game design competition which is currently in the judging phase. There is pretty much no way that I will win, however it made me work on the game, and that alone was worth it.

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