Hi folks,
It is bittersweet to say that Metatopia 2023 is already over. Not only was it my first Metatopia, but it was also my first board game convention… and after this experience, I promise it will not be my last. Double Exposure Events are the team that put this together and their work is extraordinary. I cannot express enough gratitude to them for organizing such an event.
In this convention, game designers brought their games (at any stage, from Alpha to Beta) and played with fellow designers as well as interested play testers. As a game designer, this type of event is by far the single most important place to be since the feedback is crucial to develop a better game. Playtesters at conventions like Metatopia are a godsend as they are simply there to help you make your game better. I have all of Metatopia's playtesters to thank as much as Double Exposure for hosting the event. I was also honored to playtest other designers’ games which made the whole experience that much more enjoyable! There are some fun games to look out for such as Hardwood Duel and Doomsayers. I also played my very first genuine RPG called Pantheon: Rise of the Gods which was a fun experience!
I playtested Planet Repossession Force (PRF) with three different groups, including one session that was a “hi-test” where players essentially tried to break the game. I also playtested the game with 8 players for the first time which was chaotic, fun, and clearly showed me the different creases to iron out for a better game experience.
I captured all the playtest feedback (which might be better contextualized for anyone unfamiliar with the game after visiting its TTS Workshop Mod) and I wanted to share that feedback here as an update for anyone following PRF's progress:
General feedback:
Something needs to reward players if they keep missing Support roles or die in Battle (example: failure tokens. Collecting 3 of these failure tokens and then spending them after 3 misses can “buy” a low-level Supplies card or each failure token can be added or subtracted from a dice roll in combat.) The benefits of these failure tokens should be optional to the player
Combat needs to feel less lucky and more strategic, because currently battles typically play out as a sequence of 1-2-dead for either the player or enemy. Perhaps, some mechanics akin to Dice Throne and/or games like Gloomhaven and Oathsworn to make combat feel more like combat and less like a simple “beer and pretzels” dice roller
Player cheat sheets should give all examples of combat sequences; enemy effects; PvP and multiplayer rules
Tier 3 is locked until you kill all or certain Tier 2 enemies and the map should reflect the locked sign
Tier 3 should be all Boss fights (Raid bosses) or a single Boss fight that is extremely hard (but not impossible) to defeat
For players on a team, players can only trade supplies with each other after they’ve connected their pathways on the map; forcing players of the same faction to work together
Players should meet certain conditions to use Settlements (example: kill 2 Creatures to unlock a Settlement’s ability instead of just relying on IP level)
Lower Settlements’ AP by a lot so they can be reusable after cooldown, but not overpowered. They can ONLY be used in Raids (not against Creatures) and most of them should average at only two or so points of HP and/or AP
Supplies should be permanent buffs with some that give players passive upgrades to their attack and defense (example: unlock another dice combo for defense rolls or some sort of health boost after getting wounded)
Considerations:
Scaling requirements to pick up Support cards as they get better
Scaling health/ AP for boss battles depending on player count (or difficulty level for skilled players)
Dice manipulation instead of general luck rolling (get unique combos like Dice Throne)
Incorporate trap cards for environmental challenges to make map exploration more exhilarating (example: landing on one of these tiles can hurt the player by increasing enemy tier randomly, take a life, move back to start, etc. or they can help the player with things like free upgrades, free Settlement perk unlock, etc.)
Secret objectives for each faction (like getting more Settlements than the other team to provide more winning points in the end game)
Double 6’s on defense should make the enemy miss completely if snake eyes are a critical hit
End game trigger: if all 4 bosses (or single boss) are defeated, the game ends and players count the tokens they have from area control. So, majority area control is the goal but that goal can only be realized if all bosses (or single boss) are/ is defeated. Otherwise, it is last team standing
Tier 2 Support cards are only unlocked after defeating all Tier 1 enemies
Go style mechanic (claiming all territory after surrounding it) and then players can collect failure tokens equal to the number of tiles that were closed off
Design enemy cards to have HP and AP on opposing corners as Settlement cards to easily stack them against each other and do the math
Enemies should have HP scaled 2-12 (low level creatures to bosses) to make battles easier to track. They only lose one point of HP if the player lands a basic attack with dice, enhanced attacks which would be unlocked with Supplies, and Ultimate attacks which are unlocked with Supplies and the hardest combos to pull off would do something like reduce enemy HP by 4
Players also roll on defense with easy dice combos to pull off but can use upgrades to prevent certain attacks. They start with something low like 2 HP, and players should only be able to upgrade their HP by one point with new Supplies and have a max of 10 before reaching the final boss(es). The rationale for this and the above point is that the current version requires a lot of arithmetic (so, how can I avoid making players break out their calculators)
Different maps should create different pathway challenges
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The fun is not over. It is just beginning. Now, I have plenty of data to work with as I integrate all these updates and test out some of these considerations/ new features. I will also be attending Pax Unplugged from December 1-3 in Philadelphia, so I hope to see everyone there!
Stay tuned for more updates.
- M
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