Post by Martian's Parlor Entertainment in Two player play feedback

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Martian's Parlor Entertainment3 years ago

Here is a quick feedback

What we loved :

The theme that got us engaged
The visuals of most of the components
The light rule set, really easy to pick
The whole card mechanics, easy to catch, very fun to play and really nice to look at !
The feeling of playing an euro game without the heavy rule set and the long playing time

What we thought can be improve

The game files could be a bit more printer friendly (I myself modified them a bit)
There was some part of the rules that we thought were a bit confusing : we assumed that we had to discard the suites after we used their effect but it wasn't specified in the rules; the way we're allowed to move the cards was also a bit confusing for us, maybe a sketch could have help; finally, we're not sure we catch the role of the sacrifice ticket, the player with the lowest score just looses the game right ?
Some component felt less polished : the alien cards could be easier to read, maybe with symbols ? And the goo farm and laser tower tokens can be easily mistaken, especially when tags are on it.
The whole card mechanics is so engaging that the board felt a bit accessory, with two players the token placement rules had no impact on the game.
We would have love to have more player interaction on the board, we felt that placing a token on the board had no consequence except scoring.

All that said we really loved our experience ! Thanks you for making this lovely game.

Kasper Hviid3 years ago

Thanks, that’s some solid feedback! I wasn’t really thinking of it as a euro game myself, since I’m a bit of a board game newbie and that word isn’t really a part of my normal vocabulary. But whatever direction the game may take, I think I'll try to hold on to that euro game core.

I should have spelled out that you discard the suits after use. Thanks for catching this! Also, yes, the rules certainly are in need some illustrations.

The goal of the game is to avoid ending up with the ticket. But it kind of demand more than two players, since the ticket is passed on (or not) when you count your score. While it doesn’t alter gameplay, I think it gives the game another feel when the whole game is just to not be the one losing. I liked it in Looping Louie and that old eighties card game Dynamite where you had to avoid being the one setting the dynamite off: https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/35253/dynamite

But those games both have a gradual countdown mechanic—your eggs get smashed one by one, the timer on the dynamite timer ticks down—and this element is missing from my game. I felt Terraforming Mars had a bit of a weak end-game, where you just ran out of stuff to do and stopped, so I wanted ‘something’ to spice things up.

I’ll add polishing up the components to my todo-list, but more important is how to make the stuff on the board relevant to the game. And in a way that doesn’t take attention away from the primary card mechanic. Need to do a serious brainstorm session on this!

About making the game more printer-friendly, could you tell me more about the issues? I pretty much designed it to be print’n play, so this needs fixing!

Martian's Parlor Entertainment3 years ago (1 edit)

You're welcome, your game was really fun !

I never actually played Terraforming Mars, but I think I get what you mean about the end game. I loved your idea of being sacrificed in a party at the end of the game, it seems like a fun way to loose thematically ! I hope it could have a more significant impact on the gameplay in the future.

Can't wait to see what you will be doing with the board, I'm sure you're on the right track !

About the printer friendly aspect, I was thinking about the main cards and the rules which could be a bit lighter and black and white to save some ink (see below). I love the aspect of the cards as you made them, but it would be nice to also have a cheaper option, especially with that big deck of cards.

Good luck with your design !

Kasper Hviid3 years ago

Hello again!

Just wanna say that a black-and-white version was a pretty good idea. Also, I have given some thought to your feedback, and here's my brainstormy roadmap for the next version:

— I scrap the tokens. Each player simply collects their victory points in front of them.

— Instead of the current missions, each player has a blueprint, a certain hex shape that must installed on the board. Three Laser towers in a row, for instance. (There's no rules for the placement of the hex.)

— This one I'm not entirely sure about, but I consider adding some progression so that the game starts slow and the points begin rolling in faster and faster. The players can't place Goo Farms before they reached 4 goofication. And after getting 7 in HEGTA, Laster Towers give double points. This could also be a card drawn at the start of the game, adding a specific rule.

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