I arranged a three player playtest a few days ago.
Here is what worked well:
- The new Temple mechanics (sacred food) were fun and engaging!
- It was now possible to recover after you lose a dice. The idea with Food cards that add Strength when not occupied by a dice worked well.
- Most of the other changes that were implemented earlier. For example: Choose one Stance instead of two. The Boots. Swords. These mechanics feel robust and I will keep them.
Problems that came up:
- If several snowfalls appear early it affects the game a lot, and not always in a positive way. It severely reduces the number of available Food cards. It also leads to a surplus of Protein. Most players don’t yet have any Food in Burrow so the Protein from the Snowfalls are given to every player, instead of being a small catch-up mechanic for players that are behind. And then there is always the risk of the game ending too early, in the unlikely case that all four snowfall cards appear early in game.
- The players felt that it did not matter that much what Territory your hamster stays in.
- The Temple might be too good compared to roaming the other Territories. I think the main problem is that the Temple gives more of everything. More points. More actions. Cheaper actions. If it gives more of something then maybe it should give less of something else.
- Lotus Seed might now be too cheap. There is almost no opportunity cost at all to activate it.
- The Snatch stance were not that useful later in the game. The players got their second Item quite early and most of the time there were no shortage of Protein.
Now I have a new version (0.49) where I have tried to fix all of the above problems. Here is a walk-through of the changes.
Change #1 – Fix the Snowfalls
I’ve felt for some time that the Snowfalls are not working optimal. However, there have been more pressing issues with the game that I have focused on instead. Until now. I’ve made three changes to the Snowfalls:
1. A simple idea to avoid the Snowfalls from appearing too early in the game is to separate each draw pile into two halfs during setup and shuffle the snowfall card into the lower half. I have resisted this since I want an easy setup. But I now realize that it is really needed and I don’t find any better solution if I want to keep the Snowfalls in the game. The new rule will ensure that at least three Food cards will be drawn from a Food deck before a Snowfall card can appear. This will remove the risk of the outlier game that risks ending way too soon. It also should make Protein a bit more scarce during the early game, while the Snowfalls still provide a small catch-up mechanic during late game for the players that are behind.
2. The Snowfall card is now tucked under the Food cards, instead of occupying one of the slots for Food cards. It worked thematically that the number of Food cards were reduced when it started snowing, but it were problematic for the overall game experience to severely limit the players’ choices during end-game.
3. The Snowfall cards now have a unique continuous effect that affect only that Territory. This is mainly to make the territories a bit more unique and to add another variable when deciding what territory to move to. It will also speed up the game a bit during the late game (more resources).
Change #2 – Balance the Temple (And Provide A New Incentive for Movement)
I have not changed anything about the core mechanics of the new Temple. It worked well with the recipe actions and also the flowers for gaining end-game points. The Temple also created several exciting fights between our hamsters.
Temple Blessing
The biggest change is that I have added a Temple Blessing token. This token is placed in one of the four standard territories by the first hamster to enter the Temple. You can only gain Food and Materials from this Territory through the Temple recipe actions. The Blessing token also makes the Food from this Territory cheaper, for all players. The Blessing token stays in the same territory until another Hamster enters the Temple and decides to move it. It is also possible to move the blessing token by taking one of the Temple actions.
This new mechanic serves two purposes: 1) It puts a restriction on the choices you can make in the Temple to make it a bit more balanced. 2) It adds a dynamic effect that creates an incentive to move (rewards the players that move into the currently blessed territory).
Balancing the Temple
I’ve decided to keep all the actions in Temple, but to make some of the individual actions more expensive and/or less potent. I’ve kept the amount of points you can gain the same, and even slightly reduced the cost to place your flower.
Now the strengths and weaknesses of the Temple are more balanced:
+Offers a unique way to score additional points.
+Actions are quite flexible, offering most of the alternatives of the Stance cards, at least at the highest level.
+You can do two actions at the first level, which can be very strong.
+Allows you to control what Territory should be blessed.
-The actions are generally more expensive, or limited in some other way (Food cards are same cost, but limited to just one territory).
-You have a high risk of being kicked out, losing an energy dice.
-You have a high risk of being targeted by someone’s special ability.
To maximize the potential of the Temple now you both need to have lots of Strength AND lots of energy, which is not easy.
The balancing I have done:
1) Removed the +2 energy effect on level 1. This is partly compensated by the new Temple blessing mechanic. When you enter the Temple you both get to choose what Territory to bless (maximizing benefit to you and minimize benefit to other players) and if you take a Food card you immediately get the -1 energy cost reduction.
2) Reduced the cost to place the level 3 flower to gain points.
3) The action to gain Food only allow you to gain Food from the blessed territory.
4) The action to gain Material only allow you to gain Material from the blessed territory. The cost is also increased.
5) The cost to put a Food to Burrow is increased (from 3 to 4 energy).
6) The cost to gain an Item is increased.
Change #3 – Tweaking the Special Abilities To Encourage Movement
This is a subtle but potentially impactful change. I have changed all effects that affect other players. For these effects the opponent must be in the Temple or in the same Territory as you. This has two effects: 1) It makes movement between Territories more important. Both for defense and for offense. 2) It brings even more heat towards the hamster in the Temple. If it’s too much, I may need to tweak this.
Change #4 – New Special Abilities Action Tiles And Removed Option To Do Both Stance Actions
This is a bit of a risky change, because I believe it is important to allow more choices for players that have a high energy production. This makes you feel powerful and it is a very satisfying part of the engine building aspect of the game. However, the ability to do both actions by paying 2 energy makes the Stance cards more complex. It is also an option that can rarely be used in the early stages of the game, while still forcing the players to spend time to think about this option.
The Action tiles that I added in the last version (0.48) works better because they allows the player to unlock an additional action to use for the later stage of the game, when it is needed the most. The new idea is to tweak these Action tiles to make them more fun and unique and useful.
Now each player will randomly get one of these five tiles at game start. For power players I could also add some kind of optional draft alternative later on. The tile is placed beside your hamster’s special ability. When you activate the ability you move the tile to its active slot near one of the Item slots on your player mat. When you also get that Item you can start using this unique action, once each turn.
Hopefully these tiles can now increase the options enough in the late game to allow me to get rid of the double action option on the Stance cards. I also like the idea that it allows for more variation. Players can discover interactions between different tiles and the hamster abilities, thus improving replayability.
Change #5 – Increase the Cost of the Lotus Seed
The Lotus Seed now costs 3 energy and 1 protein to activate (previously only 3 energy). A subtle change but I think it will be beneficial in two ways: 1) Makes Items slightly more difficult to get. 2) Makes Protein slightly less abundant.
Change #6 – Adjustments To the Snatch Stance
The other changes will make protein more scarce. It will also make it a little bit more difficult to get one and two Items. This in itself will make the value of the Snatch stance to increase. I have also added an option to convert 3 energy to 3 swords, to further reduce the risk of the stance being useless in late game. Maybe this also opens up for some aggressive play styles where you rapidly max out your Swords for an upcoming attack.
Change # 7 – Small Tweaks
1) Reduced the starting protein from 2 down to 1 protein.
2) Changed the effect on the blue energy dice. The move action was useless in many situations. I have changed it to “restore all stance cards”. This effect is still not that powerful, but in most cases it is at least somewhat useful, and at most it is equivalent to gaining 1 protein. It is obviously not as good as the grey dice that give you a protein, so the blue dice still have no blank sides (the grey dice have two blank sides).
3) The red Cat dice now can only activate Temple actions on level 1. Mainly to avoid AP (analysis paralysis) by reducing the number of choices. But I think it also were a bit too powerful before.
4) Changed the Rise stance “consolation prize” (gained when losing the fight for the Temple). Before it gave you 1 Sword and also one copy of any other stance action. This meant it was almost always better to try to attack the Temple, even if you had an extremely slim chance of winning the fight. Now you gain 1 Sword and may also take a Food. My goal is that it will still be very tempting to attack the Temple, but not when you have only like 2% chance of winning.
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