In a few days my first playtest with four newbies is taking place. I am going to be there to observe and take notes, and help them if they really don't know what to do, but other than that I'm mute.
I'm trying to compile a rule book for them and I'm realising that it's not as straightforward as I thought.
For the most part, the rules are straight forward. But I'm trying to think of the easiest way to describe the point system. Maybe you guys can help?
In my game, Hero cards have 1-3 powers. They go on missions, which have 1-6 power requisites. It's a symbol matching game, so heroes go on missions that match their powers in order to meet the requirements. This alone is wordy enough. Then there's the scoring...
Here's an example:
The heroes match all four power requisites on a mission. They receive 8 points. (Mission requisite # x 2)
The heroes match three of the four power requisites. They receive 4 points. (Mission requisite #)
The heroes match less than three of the four power requisites. The team receive -1 points. ( [Mission requisite # - 1 ] / 2, then rounded down)
These numbers are quickly accessed as each card has the three different points on it. However, I'm trying to figure out how to word this.
Am I going to need pictures with arrows to explain what each term/result actually means?
I'm off to hunt my old rule books... I used to have a good few in a box purely because I enjoyed reading them. I hope I still have that somewhere...
The more I go into it the more I realise a few pictures will make it far clearer and quicker to grasp. It's not a hard game to grasp, just some cards have a lot of different (colour coded) numbers. A few arrows on a picture would sort it out. There goes my hope of not needing a proper sized rule book! The game has now moved from a tuck box to an actual box, purely to fit the rules in. :P