Squamous Studios

During the last two Saturdays of last month, i conducted the last two play test sessions with various gamer friends of mine. Everyone had a good time with the game, and i got yet more helpful suggestions and criticisms on the game. And i actually witnessed my first argument over the design of the game during day 3. Some players were all for the deeper strategy that could evolve through gameplay, and others wanted more of a beer and pretzel feel to it.

Thing is, i think within the game, you can have both. I think it’s constructed enough that, once you learn the rules after a game, the feel and mechanics feel pretty fluid. But for those players who want to sink their teeth into it, they’ll find there’s room to really develop some tactics. Especially when the game reaches a certain tipping point and the Minion cards are no longer in the main deck.  Then it’s more of a matter of survival and trying to kill the other players off with the Shoggoth, rather than trying to gain points to win.

At any rate, i’m now getting the game ready to take to a local convention in less than two weeks and have a bunch of total strangers tear it apart. Should be really interesting. Hell, i’m just hoping people will want to sit down and play it.

Through this process, i’ve definitely learned some valuable lessons when it comes to play testing:

1) Divorce yourself emotionally from your game. If you want your game to succeed, you’d damn well better learn quick to take harsh criticism of it. The best kind of feedback to get is the brutally honest kind- in the end, it will always benefit your game in the long run. And that’s ultimately what you want, right? Remember that an attack on your game is not an attack on you.

2) Take all the notes you can. Write down who’s playing, how many players, what modifications to your game you made prior to the session, how long it took, anything and everything you can think of. Things that your players talk about during play. If anyone looks bored.

3) Give the players a survey. Seriously, they don’t mind. The timing of when to give them the survey is important; i learned that people do much better when they’re handed the survey before the start of the game, so they know what to think about while they’re playing.

4) Shut up and let them play. What i did, from the first day on, was pick someone who “bought” the game, handed them the deck (pre-shuffled, just to be fair), gave them a copy of the rules, and told them to go for it. Because you aren’t going to be there to hold people’s hands when they buy your game for real; why do it during playtesting? I was always the ghost in the room, and only spoke up when the players pointed out something that was clearly broken, or had a rules question they couldn’t figure out on their own.

5) Record your sessions if possible. I really wish i’d done this more than once, because sometimes a lot of simultaneous discussions can go on, and it’s damn near impossible to keep track of them all.

6) Be ready to modify the hell out of your cards. I’ve got some cards with 4 Post-It notes on them, all from rules tweaks that were needed after each session. My Crown of the Yellow King card is almost unusable now.

7) Get card protectors! Even the cheap ass ones are better than nothing, especially if you’re dealing with #6 above.

Right, i think that’s it for now. There’s other news on the horizon, but i think i’ll save that for later….

Last Saturday, i ran more playtesting with a new batch of victims- uh, i mean, volunteers. With the new rules modifications (and tweaking of several of the cards), the games went a lot smoother than the first weekend. And even those games weren’t that bad. In fact, it went so well, we ended up having a third game played.

I had four players this last time, as compared to six on the first weekend. This was very desirable, as i needed to see if the game would play well with four as well as six. Later on in the evening, we gained a fifth, and it was interesting to see how the game dynamics changed. The Minions, those cards you need to sacrifice to the shoggoth, became an even rarer commodity as the third game developed. Some faction’s special abilities really got important at the later stages of the game.

The best compliment i got that day was a player telling me that she was surprised that it was that late, as she felt the time had flew by when playing the game…three times in a row!

I’m starting to feel really good about what i’ve got here. Now i’ve got to get the whole artist thing sorted out. When i get them together, i’ll post some pictures of the development process involved in making the prototype deck…

I’m happy to announce that i’ve recently signed a contract to work on a new book for Red Lion Publishing, called Medieval Tales. I’ll be doing the layout for not only the book (slated to be around 300 pages), but also a quickstart guide and a character sheet. This’ll be my first book project that has nothing to do with the horror genre, so this will be a way for me to stretch myself creatively. Plus, i’ll get to do the cover this time….oddly, i’ve never designed a cover before. Things are just getting underway, but i’m sure i’ll have more news on this book soon.

So that’s announcement number one. The second announcement has to do with something that i’ve actually alluded to here on the site a few times before. Those mysterious numbers i’ve been posting about? They’ve been in reference to a card game that i’ve been designing (those numbers were a running count of how many cards i’d actually made). The game is called “Feed the Shoggoth!”; the premise being that you and your opponents are the head of a cult faction, all vying for control of the shoggoth that’s moving around the table. To gain points and win the game, you must sacrifice your Minions to the shoggoth, moving the shoggoth in front of you to do so. Your opponents are attempting to do the same thing, whilst also trying to prevent you from sacrificing Minions.

I’ve been in the development phase for the past couple of months, writing the rules, drawing out the cards, figuring out the special abilities of the Cult Factions, doing a LOT of cutting and pasting and erasing and Post-It notes and glue sticks and little bits of laminate that i’m still finding in places i shouldn’t…

*ahem*

Anyway, i’m now at the play test phase, of which i had my first session last night. We ran through two games; the first one uncovered a number of issues with the rules (why the hell i never thought of a discard phase during player’s turns, i’ll never know), and i had players point out some cards that weren’t clear enough in their descriptions. The second game went a lot smoother (and quicker), partly because they players were now familiar with the game, and partly because i implemented some of the rules changes that were suggested. So a big success overall.

And hell, the game’s playable, after the first try! Not too shabby.

Once i get things more together, i’ll start going more in depth as to the game development, and what it’s taken to get this thing going. There’s still plenty of work ahead!

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