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A jam submission

VACCINEView project page

A new virus emerges. Help the world fight it by finding the best possible vaccine!
Submitted by madster321 — 11 hours, 3 minutes before the deadline
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VACCINE's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Best rule book#14.5004.500
Best use of theme#24.2504.250
Best 2 player game#42.7502.750
Best family game#53.5003.500
Most unique design#53.5003.500
Overall#53.2503.250
Best game for 3+ players#63.2503.250
Best solitaire game#81.0001.000

Ranked from 4 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

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Comments

Submitted

Me and my wife enjoyed playing this, and it was so quick we played a second time right away! 

Printing instructions were very useful, however it was hard to cut the cards with scissors because there were no trace lines between cards. Next time you make PnP files, it would be great to facilitate those without a paper cutter as well ;)

Your rules don't mention who starts first or what happens if a tile stack is empty, but other than that the rulebook was great and covered everything needed.

I don't enjoy memory elements in games, so that part of your game didn't work for me. The rest of the gameplay was optimizing mission points while avoiding elements you've already seen in Research cards, which felt a bit flat and repetitive, but the optimization part was engaging enough.

On a second play we felt that there weren't many options to differentiate strategy. My wife tried to play less for objectives and more for getting points at the end, while I was juggling both like the first time, and she lost by 2 points, making her feel that her strategy was suboptimal.

Overall, great production quality, great rulebook, good gameplay experience, maybe not a lot of replayability

First off, I wouldn't worry about the art style - we thought it was gorgeous! Simple, but really legible as far as the mechanics were concerned. It's a little whimsical for a theme that could slide toward darkness. 

The gameplay is very simple and your rulebook lays out everything exceptionally clear. The only bit that could get lost is how the game begins - each player secretly looking at one face-down research card. This detail is right at the end of set-up. Might be better to have in the gameplay section.

Where the game is quick, we found it a little too quick. Though if you're targeting a younger audience, this might be the perfect length. Depends on your goal! We also felt it was quite easy to determine the true solution (in a two player game), even when one of us (me) has a terrible memory. The fact that the other player's board is visible played more of a part in deduction than our own boards. Have you considered making the lab boards bigger or adding another layer of virus qualities?

As many others have said, this isn't a co-op game, but I think it would really interesting to explore that possibility. Each player adding a prospective tile to a larger central board based on what they know. This may lead to interesting interactions such as "why would they place that there? What are they trying to tell me?" Or whatever you feel. I think the possibility is there!

All in all, the game's table presence is pleasing and the gameplay is tight, but I wouldn't shy away from complicating it.

Well done!

Submitted

Hey my wife and I played your game and we loved it! It went very smoothly, almost without hitch. I personally LOVED your theme and the mechanics. I loved mixing the secretive element along with the public element of scoring, and they seemed really balanced. Your pictures were super helpful and your rules were very well written. As a science teacher who is trying to make science themed games, I really appreciated your time and effort you put into explaining the science behind vaccines in your rules. THANK YOU!

I did have a couple of rules related questions:

1. Should there be a discard pile for the research cards? We almost ran out with just two players so I was thinking maybe we were discarding too much...

2. After we complete a row/column and we score points for a completed research card are we supposed to replace that research card we completed with a new research card? It did not say to do this in your rules, but we did it because it felt natural. 

3. If we complete a row and a column on the same turn, do we get to discard and replace 2 research cards and look at 2 secret disease cards?

Again, loved the game! In case you are keeping track of stats, we played it with 2 players. The score with just the research cards was 5 - 3. The score with the end game scoring with 4 - 5 with overall final scores of 9 - 8. 

Submitted

This is a nice game! The rules seem clear. The diagrams with the labels on them are very helpful and make set-up very easy.  The components have a nice unified look to them. The artwork overall reminds me of games from the publisher Oink Games. The theme is certainly topical to the moment but the presentation is friendly enough to make it playable as an escape too. 

I like the way there are secret goals and public goals. This leads to some uncertainty as to the score until the very end of the game when the winner is determined. I should point out, however, that the game is not a co-op. 

All in all we had much fun checking this one out.

I really like the art design in your game.