I dare you to read my Rules!!

I didn't even want to mention the cards or the fact that each card is the size of a page instead of fitting 6 or 9 cards to a sheet. But you're right. It's an excellent example of the stretched or badly resized images, as the center of the card is high resolution and crisp.

I have to agree with what's all being said above by Fertessa, Jay103 and QuestCCG.

Hyperbole and off topic banter aside; your stated goals (in this thread) don't seem to match what is present in your rules. The rules and board show a game about buying and receiving the most gifts/cash possible; full stop.

The rules are not nearly as clear as they can be.

There are "mechanics" that are absolutely not pertinent to the stated end goal of the game (or that are not even 'mechanics' at all but rather side events). While I applaud your desire to instill family traditions and non-commercial holiday spirit through the journals and carol singing and so on, it's got nothing to do with the games stated goal itself. If none of that provides an end game bonus, it's not really a game component and certainly not a mechanic.

I know you're very passionate about this project but it is certainly not a Monopoly slayer (as I would hope you jokingly stated earlier) and is very much a niche within a niche within a niche.

You say you've been play testing this for 4 years. I have no doubt you have, however, I find many people state they've play tested for X years when in reality it is their friends and family have played. How many complete strangers have played this game? How many complete strangers have played it without you providing any advice or input? What kind of feedback have you gotten from those people?

When Game Designers from BGDF offer ADVICE ... and it's CONSTRUCTIVE criticism ... The "receiver" of said advice is to read the advice, process it and "shut $#"! This is not a debate. We are not here to debate the validity or game-worthiness of your game. You're not going to win ANYTHING by having the most "valid" arguments. On the contrary, it seems like you are totally missing the point... Because all your replies are rhetorical.

Like I said in one of my comments, @Evan is just going to be defensive and add a response that is a "Back at you" question or response.

Now I get it. You don't understand what this forum is for. You don't see what now 4 BGDF Designers are trying to say with the "extras" that you feel will create Christmas Traditions.

And adding to that I agree with Jay when he said something like: "It's not up to a Board Game to tell me what Christmas Traditions I should or should not adopt..." I'll leave it at that...

And I am QUITTING adding comments to this thread because it's obvious that you A> Don't understand what all the Designers are saying B> Your responses are all rhetoric C> You're not looking for honest advice and finally D> You consider your game finished and are not open to making changes.

Why have you come to us asking for our HONEST opinions ... when all you want is to debunk them???

Hey Evan,

I read your rules in the correct order. After skimming the comments, I saw they were listed in an atypical way, so I made sure to follow them by page number. (1, 2, 3, 4, etc)

For the side events, personally they don't appeal to me. I think that you can definitely have the journal or invoke speeches/discussions, but I feel like they could be incorporated in your design better.

If the board allows you to be naughty or nice, then why not let players who take the naughty track earn points celebrating the materialism of Christmas, but players who take the nice track earn points off of the wholesome aspects of Christmas, like the caroling or speech-making?

Or instead of forcing all players to do these things, have only the winner do them, or have these things mark when players move from the circular track to the calendar track. These ideas aren't horrible or anything, but the way they're implemented feels forced and false. If it stays as it is, then yes, it feels like a product for a very niche market.

And if alot of your playtesters are telling you the rules are hard to understand, then that is a problem. If you hired a guy who writes rulebooks for a living, but he wasn't able to convey the rules in a way that people could understand them, I suggest consulting with another rulebook editor/writer.

Personally, I'm not a fan of alot of one-stop shops, because it leaves alot of room for a lack of quality. If you're waiting a year for graphics and testing for four years, then take the time to shop for the individual services you need. Compare people, and ask around on design forums to see if other people have used the people you're researching.

Just clicking on the link you gave, I knew by looking at the home page that that is not a company I would ever trust to do my graphic design.Their page is too busy. The font is unnecessarily large. If you look at the boardgame examples they show, they're all in different sizes. The wording of the site indicates that English is not their native language also. The games I see linked are from failed Kickstarters or just don't have any presence online. There are alot of red flags.

I recommend looking on BGG for a designer/artist to bring your game to life. Please please please do not print off 500 games with this company. Cheaper does not necessarily mean better, and I'm very wary of the quality of their physical products when they can't even provide acceptable digital assets. Even if you take nothing else from this forum, please do not continue to do business with this company.

Finally, don't give up on your design. Just give up on your stubborness. If you've waited this long, it won't hurt to make an experimental design changing some things up. Test your game without the graphics. That's how hobbyists get their prototypes tested. Maybe it'll be terrible after making some changes, but maybe it'll be more interesting too. These changes aren't going to be immediate fixes, but they can lead you down the path to a more solid game. Just explore the advice you've been given, and after some months, if you don't see a positive change, then return to what you started with.

I'll give one more shot at this question:

Because now you're selling two things. One is a game that is 100% about materialism.

This is directly from your rules:

As I said, pure materialism. The value of Christmas is the cash value of gifts you manage to acquire. The "Charity" space is part of this game, btw, because it DOES affect game outcome; however, it really isn't charity -- it's a random drawing with the word "charity" on it.

Then you have a second thing you're selling, which is trying to get people to talk about nice stuff, etc.

That second thing is not a game, and doesn't tie into the game you're providing as the first thing, except that it's a different aspect of Christmas. So when I play the Christmas Materialism Game, it might be a lot of fun, but playing involves making decisions to win. I would never put money into Charity voluntarily. That makes zero sense with your rules. There is literally no benefit to me or possible trade-off that would ever make that a good idea.

If a "traditional" Christmas was something important to me (i.e. family and charity and whatnot, over materialism), I would AVOID this game, fun though it might be, because materialism is the whole point of the game. I wouldn't say, well, hey, it's materialistic, but it also tells me to sing a carol at the end and talk about where I'd like to vacation, so let's give it a shot.

If I wanted to sing carols and talk about vacations, I can do that without this game. Or I could find/make a game that was ABOUT that, like QuestCCG (and I) suggested earlier in this thread.

If I wanted to focus on the Meaning of Christmas, I could play Parcheesi and every time someone rolled a 6 twice in a row, they sing a carol, and every time someone gets sent back, the sender has to tell them something they like about them. Then there's NICE messages and no materialism in the first place. I don't need to buy your game for that...

As one final note, I asked way at the top whether someone would play this game more than once (in the same year, anyway). You basically said of course they would. But in your "speech" stuff, you have things like "say where you'd like to take these people on vacation." I could hit that square twice in the same GAME, which is already silly ("Um, yeah, I still want to take you to Disney World."). Then to play it again and say that AGAIN? Sure, maybe "part 1", the game part, is fun twice. But "part 2" the not-game stuff, couldn't possibly be.

Also, why are you shipping this with books of carols? That seems completely unnecessary. Carols Not Included. The only place the game even mentions caroling is to sing a carol when the game ends.

The problem with not rewarding "extras" is that they remain totally incidental to the game and give rise to the question which everyone here has been asking, "Why are we doing this?"

The answer to that question can't be "Because it's nice" or "Because it will become a good family tradition", since those activities would be equally nice/ traditional if they weren't tacked onto the game.

If the extra's are actually the main point of the game - as I infer they are - then the GAME itself is really an unnecessary extra - even a distraction from the more meaningful activities you have lined up for people.

The question then is "Why are we playing the game?"

Do you see what I mean? Either the game is important or it isn't. If the game is important, the extras aren't. If the game isn't important, then why don't we just cut to the chase and draw Christmas trees?

There's a similar tension with this "Charity" idea. As I understand it, you give people the choice of donating to charity, an altruistic act since it hinders your chance of "winning" the game. However, you hope that people actually won't care about winning the game so giving to charity, in this context stops being a nice thing to do. It's just a pointless thing to do. No-one benefits because no-one wants money, because the real point of the game isn't winning, it's the extras!... :)

Genuine charity could only be possible is the giver and receiver BOTH actually have some emotional investment in winning. The giver decides to sacrifice some of his enjoyment to enhance someone else.

In your game, who enjoys receiving the money? You hope NOBODY, because you want them to realise that the money isn't important - thus the charity (giving and receiving isn't important - and in fact the whole game isn't important...)

Ya dig?! :D

1. I can't think of games off the top of my head, but regarding the mechanic, I would say that a reward has to be something the player wants. So if it isn't something which gives the player victory points for endgame, it should be something which helps them gain victory points or some sort of advantage in-game. Like a card that lets them move more spaces, or a bonus of being able to roll twice, or immunity from something in game. It just depends on what all is going on in your game.

2. As game designers, your only responsibility is to yourself. Right now it seems like you're having trouble deciding who your audience is.

If this game is intended for a niche audience who specifically already likes the things you have in your game, then no need to get feedback from designer forums. If you want to sell your game to people outside of that niche however, then you have to consider why other people feel like certain elements of your game are unwanted extras. Making your game appealing to hobby gamers is different from wanting your game to please everybody.

For example, even if a hobby gamer doesn't like a game, they can still say whether a game is solid or not. They would just say, this game's not my style, but it's a functional game that does X, Y, Z. That's what you want. Currently, as a hobbyist, your game doesn't feel fully functional. That fact is independent from whether or not I'd like or play it.

I'm glad that immunity was able to unlock that door to a new perspective. I know all too well how difficult it can be to get that door open. And yes, the examples you gave are much better ways to implement the journal-writing and caroling activities. :)

Hey Evan,

I agree with Jay. The change you suggested sounds like a strong place to start. :) Good luck!