In the beginning of this week I arranged a full-length digital playtest with two other players. They were both completely new to Hamster Valley. I came away with a lot of valuable feedback and insights!
The Good
“I want to play again!”
“Great satisfaction to achieve the dice-bonuses on the Food cards.”
“I like the look of the game board.”
“I like the dynamics of combining both dice and cards for my engine building.”
Most of the mechanisms worked as I have intended and there were a good amount of player interaction. We were fighting for both Territory dice and for control of the Temple. The game took about 90 minutes which is OK with three players when two of us where new to the game. One of the players spontaneously said that he wanted to play again, which is a very good indicator for enjoyment.
The Bad
“Felt limited by being last in turn order.”
“Too difficult to get the first Item.”
“Felt limited by having to move as the first action. I wanted to grab the Material/Die/Card in my current Territory and then move out.”
“The Cat were too good when it increased in Strength after two Snowfalls had landed.”
“Very difficult to get Protein again (after leaving the Temple depleted).”
To summarize the main problems I noticed during the playtest:
- Not enough flexibility when choosing and performing actions on the Stances
- The requirement to have a specific Food type to gain an Item felt too restrictive
- Game pace a bit too slow – players often struggled to get enough Food cards
- The main mechanism intended to get Protein wasn’t used at all during the game
- Some balancing issues with play order, the Temple and the Hamster abilities
Change #1 – Increase Start Resources & Give Protein As Turn Order Handicap
It is often crucial to have a good 2-cost Food on the board, when you start with only 2 energy. I have now increased the start energy to 3 energy for all players. This makes the first few turns less reliant on what Food cards happen to be drawn at game start. More generally it also open up for more alternatives in the first few turns.
All players except the start player will now get extra Protein at game start, instead of reroll tokens. This should be considerable more powerful and will hopefully balance up the first-player advantage. More playtesting will be needed to confirm this.
These two changes together also increases the game pace a bit, which is a good thing. The playtime often ends up in the high end of the range I want the game to hit (~20-25 min per player).
Change #2 – Introduce a “Wildcard” Food – Welcome Lotus Seed!
I have struggled with the mechanism for getting Items. I think the idea that you need to discard a Food card to get an Item adds a lot to the game. However, many times one player might have a significant advantage, depending on the start Territory and what Items are drawn at game start.
My new idea is to introduce a “wildcard” Food that can be used as any of the other four basic Food types. I call it Lotus Seed. This Food costs 3 energy and can be gained in any Territory through a Bonus Action of the new Roam Stance. There are eight Lotus Seed cards in total, with one of those always available.
The Lotus Seed cards have several beneficial effects:
*More flexible to choose what Item to get. Less dependent on what Items are drawn at game start.
*There will always (at least in the beginning of the game) be a Food to get for max 3 energy. Less dependent on what Food cards are drawn at game start
*Now possible to get Food cards on two different Stances. Increased game pace.
*Easier to get the Food type combos needed to use the Protein tiles.
This is the only new component introduced in this batch if changes. I am always hesitant to introduce new elements and components, but in this case I believe the benefits is enough to motivate it.
Change #3 – Remake Stances: Remove Action Order & Introduce Bonus Actions
I have managed to simplify the Stances a great deal in previous changes. Generally the Stance mechanism works well. However, I identified some issues with the Stances:
*Sometimes too limited by the order the actions had to be performed.
*ln some situations the Roam stance were quite useless.
*Need Food cards more often than the regular cycling of Stance cards allow. Especially if you want to use the Protein tiles (since those Actions are on the same Stance card and you have to choose only one). And you must get Protein to be able to cycle faster.
The updated Stance cards address all these issues I believe. The player is now free to choose what order the actions are performed. The requirement that you have to move first is mostly a remnant from an earlier version where the rules made it necessary for the turn order flow to be logical. That is no longer the case.
I have also added one Bonus Action on each of the regular Stances. These add a bit of complexity, but it also allowed me to remove two “free actions” so I think it will be manageable. One of the Bonus Actions is to gain a Lotus Seed Food for 3 energy. This give the player two Stance cards for gaining Food.
Change #4 – Protein Tiles Tweaks
The main solution to the problem with players not using the Protein tiles is the changes made to the Stance cards, and the introduction of the Lotus Seed cards. I have also tweaked the Protein tiles and they now give more Protein for the 2-type combos. The tiles also stay face-up after use, allowing a player to gain the rewards again on a later turn. There is now a Bonus Action to discard a Protein tile, which allows for some low-intensity player interaction.
Change #5 – Now You Can Gain Protein In The Temple!
One of the players expressed that it was difficult to regain Protein once you leave the Temple with zero Protein. I have noticed this myself but I had not decided if it was a problem or not. Now I decided to try to remove the rule that says that you can not gain any Protein in the Temple. One rule less to remember.
If it turns out that the Temple is too powerful, I can pull other levers to balance this. For example the Strength penalty when staying in the Temple or tweaking the Temple rewards.
Change #6 – New Strength Dice – Welcome D4 Tetrahedron!
This change is not really issues that surfaced during the playtest. It is something I have planned to do for a long time.
I see several benefits with using D4 instead of D6 for the Strength dice:
*Clear visual difference between energy dice slots and strength dice slots on the cards and other components. Rectangle vs. triangle.
*Standard dice values, 1-4. Players often asked for the distribution of numbers on the custom D6 Strength dice. I have not found an obvious place to put that info on the game board or any other place. Now I don’t need to find any place at all, since I don’t need that info anymore. The best place for info is nowhere – make it so obvious that you don’t need the info at all.
*Can use purple standard D4 dice. Fewer custom dice to manufacture.
*The D4 looks sharp and dangerous – perfect for the dice that are involved in fighting!
I had to tweak the Strength values for the Cat and the Temple Strength penalty. The Strength value for the cat is now 5 Strength and it increases with 2 Strength for each snowfall. This is actually a reduction in relative strength for the Cat, in line with the comments during the playtest.
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