Violet Moon - first playtest report

Had my first test session for this game last night, through Game Makers' Guild.  Two players, neither of whom was me, which helps.  The Faerie player had some good strategies and was able to capture six villagers before we ran out of time; the Villager player had correctly figured out who two of the four faeries were, but had not been able to maneuver them into being captured.  Overall conclusion was that the core concept is good, but the movement cards in their current form are too restrictive and work against the puzzle solving aspect of the game more than they contribute to making the puzzle interesting.  The main problem was that most of the movement cards require a specific starting position for multiple pieces before you move, which made it much harder to find ways for that move to be useful.  At the same time, they did feel that the cards supported the in-game narrative of the villagers dancing around in a circle.  So it looks like the next step from here is to either make the individual cards more flexible, or change the way movement is handled altogether (i.e. instead of "play one of the four cards in your hand," come up with a way to have more options available at all times - and based on the feedback from yesterday, it doesn't sound like just increasing hand size is the right solution).  We'll see where this leads...

Under a Violet Moon prototype

I was hoping to get at least one virtual playtest (and possible revisions) before printing, but I have an in-person event this weekend so this couldn't wait any longer.  So here you go - the hard copy prototype for Under a Violet Moon.  Blackmore's Night CDs not included.

 

Hopefully I'll be back here in a couple days with the first playtest report...
 

DGE: Cardboard Edison feedback, and next steps

 Well I got cut in round 1, which is more or less what I expected.  I still think I have a pretty great game but that doesn't mean I can't find a way to make it even better.  Here are the major points of the feedback I got, and what I think I might do with it:

• Voting should be secret - yeah, I don't disagree, this would undoubtedly improve the game.  I just need to think of a way to implement it that isn't too cumbersome.  First thing that occurs to me as I'm writing this is for every player to have a dial that they turn to the number of the player they're voting for, then put them face down in the middle of the table so it's not obvious who voted for who.  That does sound like fun (and bonus if the dials are shaped like gears, or something else dwarfy), but it also sounds like complex components that will increase manufacturing cost and thus make this a harder sell to publishers.  I'll have to see what else I can come up with.
• Goblin cards - some judges liked this, others didn't.  Every playtest has started with just the basics and then adding in Goblins after a couple of rounds, and no one has told me they thought this detracted from the game, so I'm inclined to keep them.
• This core mechanic has been done to death over the past 15-20 years, it needs something to really stand out - yep, accurate statement.  That said, some comments also pointed out features that they thought did separate this game from similar ones - combining two cards to match the request instead of just playing one, bonus points for matching materials, optional rules to change up gameplay.  So I guess what I need to do with this is a way to make those aspects of the game more prominent.  I'm not sure if that's about the game itself or about how I present it though.
  as a side note, this is reminding me of one test game where a player argued that someone else's pitch was bad because of potential side effects of their invention, to which I responded "this is the Guild of Engineers, that's a problem for the Guild of Marketers" - I suppose this is that bit of hubris come back to bite me now
• Fantasy theme is a bad fit - I don't get this one.  I understand that it's not for everyone, but at the same time it's also a very popular theme in general.  Maybe this is about defining the target audience?  Like if it's being presented as a "party game" then they want to market it to the same people who buy Apples to Apples or Pictionary, and those are largely not the same people buying Gloomhaven or Lords of Waterdeep?  Besides liking fantasy in general, I also particularly like it for this game because it gives players the freedom to make things up to explain their inventions.  For example, if the prompt is "build something to keep behemoth worms out of my land," you can say whatever you want about behemoth worms.  A different theme that's closer to reality is also going to take away some of that flexibility, which will definitely detract from the game.  That said, I could also see this working with something like "you are all apprentices to Leonardo da Vinci," so there's still precedent for having crazy nonsense.