https://volcanique.rocks/feedback

The feedback form is the main thing I’ve actually added to the website. I bought and read Adam in Wales’ book - Playtesting: A Practical Guide for Board Game Designers. I’ve been

The next thing is to convince people to actually fill it in after they’ve played. I think the questionaire is too long and it probably needs more quick Likert scale style questions, but hey, it at least exists.

Let me get back to ya’ll on that.

An entirely new game

Yeah, that’s right, I got bored and started making something new. A co-op deckbuilder called Recency Bias - A week of dreams, a deck of schemes.

https://screentop.gg/@Aulox/recency-bias

This was my first time using Dextrous and Screentop - both very intuitive web apps that honestly got my concept up to a full blown testable prototype in under two days.

Is it any good? I don’t think so, not yet. But I think it’s mostly because it’s missing a goal. Much like Volcanique for a long time, I didn’t have a reason that you would want to finish the game apart from ‘I’m bored now’. But I think that’s a good place to be.

The weekly goals are what takes the game from a random stack of ‘do this and that but not that because rules’, to hopefully an enjoyable game.

Is the artwork much further along? You bet. Are some of the card names and descriptions something I’ve had a lot of fun devising? You bet. Does that make it a better game than Volcanique? Nah. I don’t think so.

There was a definite buzz I got from even quite early playtests of Volcanique, thinking - oh that is quite a fun little synergy or imagining pulling off a sequence against an opponent.

But that is likely because of the way Recency Bias is designed - it’s supposed to be multiplayer and I am yet to have multiple players try and work toward the goals.

Polishing

This will take a lot of fine grit. Digging deep. Where do I even want to get with it? It’s hard to know.

It’s mostly the powers that are a little undecided. Do you go only to three powers, to four, five…ten!?

5 felt right initially, but game times have definitely exploded out with four or more players.

It feels like 90% there, so there’s probably 90% more to go, and not having an actual end goal is a bit tricky.

Do I think lots of people might enjoy Volcanique? Absolutely. Do I think that getting it to lots of people will be very difficult? Absolutely.

A (failed) crafternoon

Unfortunately, hunger in the art supplies store led to me picking completely the wrong colours, twice. So only one out of three colours that we spent an afternoon painting an entire Voclanique set ended up being the colour I was really after. Ah well.

4 player games!

I’ve now played through with two separate groups for 4 player games. It adds another very interesting element, where because of the smog that follows the lava, every second player becomes a tenative teammate (e.g. P1 & P3 + P2 & P4).

Generally speaking, this leads towards an intermittent pairing. With someone potentially getting wiped out early (not my intention).

To resolve this midgame, we allowed trading, which helped people bounce back. The other idea I’m keen to test, is when someone crosses the 5 critter threshold, anyone can attack them. This might add an incentive to sacrifice and summon out the island. I haven’t seen it executed in the past few games.

Both times we played the Volcanic Winter ending, and honestly, this might be my favourite end game I’ve devised so far.

There’s a little bit everyone can do to be able to lock off their points, but still much can change.

I’ve also all but ruled out largest biome as an extra point gainer. But I think with prompt/goal cards it could still be viable, as people are more likely to aim for it.

Some inspiring talks

To wrap up this train of though blog post, here’s a few videos for boardgame/card game design that really inspired me.

These have been popping up in Youtube recommendations for the past two months or so, but they were long and I hadn’t the time. But, now I have had the time, and damn they are filled with some great quotes and gems of information.

‘Magic: the Gathering’: 20 Years, 20 Lessons Learned by Mark Rosewater https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHHg99hwQGY

Designing ‘MARVEL SNAP’ by Ben Brode https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjhsY2Zuo-c

I had held also held off watching them as I hadn’t been designing a card game up until this point.

Signing off, ABK