Deciding to change a core starting mechanic of the game can completely change the playstyle and feel.

There are two components that I’m currently tackling are starting islands and opener turns.

As I personally have played the game hundreds of times in all its various iterations, the first two turns have always felt quite repetitive, sometimes the first 3 if players aren’t optimising for an early volcano.

The game inevitably shifts at the point the first volcano is triggered, suddenly, the board begins to expand outward, not just up. Generally in that round, up to 3 volcanoes can be triggered in a 4 player game, completely changing the landscape. It opens the first important decisions of whether to also set off a volcano, gain a point, gain a power, and gain a critter, or whether to play more passive or defensively and capitalise on the volcanic soil tiles.

In an ‘optimal’ rush play, any player going second to fourth can afford a volcano on their 2nd turn. This seems fair.

A rush game

Start Round 1

Start Round 2

This is another example of favour for having diversified islands to start.

Start Round 3

Start Round 4

Start Round 5

Start Round 6

Round 7

Purple played a scorched earth tactic, trying to take Blue down with them but it was too little too late.

Final scores Purple: 9 Blue: 16 Orange: 13

Loss aversion

I have been revisiting game theory on loss aversion. One contentious note that has come up a few times were the starting islands.

“Things that people own gain more value in their eyes. Personalizing or anthropomorphizing enhances this effect.” - Geoffrey Englestein

People have often mentioned that the islands they start on feels like ’theirs’, making them more likely to try and defend it rather than going after everyone else. Is this a bad thing? For this game, when the playstyle is symbiosis, yes. I believe thematically it makes more sense for the islands to start with an even(ish) spread of numbers.

However, this does create a fundamental flaw, if I’m not careful, a volcano could be triggered in turn 1. That doesn’t feel like the player ’earned’ it. Turn 2 works but you have to get it exactly right and not have another player intentionally sabotaging it.

That being said, the volcanoes are critical for the game to have the variance so I do want them popping out early.

It may be as simple reducing it to 1 bonus resource or an alternating rotation at the start to ensure no one ends up with 5 of a kind.

5 is absolutely the logical threshold of the anyone can attack. As they could otherwise always go for a volcano each turn.

More thoughts and testing inbound…

But on second thoughts - A Game Designer’s week later comment

Remembering the ol’ adage of ’every new player will play your game once’. Very few will play it a second time, let alone a third or one hundredth.

Why not reward a player who has the foresight to go all in on 5 of a kind on turn one. Many mightn’t think to do it, in a competitive group many will go for it, potentially to the point of blocking each other from cracking the 5 (on the three-times-around, biome selecting moves).

Another note on speed - listening to this Podcast from the Board Game Design Lab interview with Elizabeth Hargrave (creator of Wingspan)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQlnE_1CMko&t=1742s

They intentionally left the game finishing early, so players would be more likely to want more and have another playthrough.

Whilst we very quickly introduced the ‘1 extra cube’ house rule for Wingspan, as every we’ve played with likes to see their ’engines’ properly firing. It is an interesting way to entice player’s for that second shot at your game.