There was a really big turnout at the New York City Board Game Designers Play Test Group July meeting yesterday, at the home of international expert of game theory Eric Zimmerman. There was a really interesting game with an airport management theme I glimpsed but didn’t play. Banana Brains by Josh and Niko seemed to be going well when I looked in on it; I had played an earlier version and thought it was a unique theme (imagine armies of zombie monkeys) and the play was unique, interesting, and well balanced.
Elizabeth Carpenter of Mazeology dropped in with a dazzling new prototype for a 3D strategy game. It was also really challenging to try to keep all the game variables in mind with so many dimensions to keep track of when I played it, and I felt the tipping rule (players can intentionally cause parts of the structure to topple) was a little too chaotic on top of the strategic challenges otherwise, but it looks like it will be a great game eventually.
I also got to play test a couple of my designs. I got Robot Racing out first, a tile-laying game inspired by Robo Rally, and players liked the look and the general mechanics the first time through, but play was moving too slowly, so one of the players suggested a way to progressively speed up the movement in a way that helped to balance runaway leader risk, a la Power Grid. Changing all turn tiles to rotate any direction tiles and adding MOVE 3 tiles seems to be honing in on a good mix of tiles.
I also brought out 4th Corner Hedge near the end, just to get some ideas from the other designers how to make the tunneling expansion work so that players didn’t wait to dig their tunnels until the exit appeared. I’m going to try a few of the ideas in the next few play tests, including limiting how long the tunnel can be, how long it takes to dig it, and whether it needs to be started before the exit appears.
I’m waiting to hear from one bank about a line of credit, and I need to do the last few pages of the application for another bank. Still waiting to hear from a potential private investor and hoping that one or more of these sources allows production of Samsara and Star Hopper to go forward.
Mark Salzwedel
Tags: 4th Corner, finance, NYCBGDPTG, playtest, Samsara, Star Hopper, strategic space