My brother and his family came to visit this weekend, so I roped him into testing "DareBase" with me for a handful of games on Saturday night while the kids were watching a movie.
We were able to get 3 games finished in just under an hour (which fits well into the timeframe I wanted it to), and -- true to my tendancy to be a bad player of my own games -- I lost all three games.
In any case, it showed a number of happy things with regard to the game. It's tight, quick and tense, and the dice mechanic works exactly as I had hoped. My brother even mentioned that he really like the way the dice worked.
The only problem seems to be the balance in the game winning conditions. In the 3 games, the most players either of us ever had in jail at the same time was 2 -- and that only happened once. Trying to win by jailing 4 at the same time didn't seem like it was worth trying to do, compared to getting to the opponent's base twice.
So, I will work through a couple of tweaks ... For example, reducing the game-winning jailing number to 3, splitting up the 2 base flags into 2 different spots and requiring a player to get to both bases in order to win, etc. My brother suggested that if I didn't mind making a longer game, I could leave the 4 players in jail item, then give 3 scattered bases to cover. (Although I like how quick the game plays ... nicely allows for immediate re-matches.)
I'll play around with the tweaks and see what kind of better balance can be created. It showed me once again how valuable playtesting something is ...
-Bryk
A lot has happened since the original post in this thread. A big set of thank you's needs to go out to Johan Forsell, David Whitcher (Dralius), and Clark Rodeffer for playtesting the game and giving feedback. Another set needs to go to Nando, darkehorse, Zzzzz, Zomulgustar, and others for many good discussions with me while I developed this game.
It is nearly ready for me to release as another self-published game through my website. I still have some proofreading, webpage, packaging and other fiddly work to put everything together -- but I'm guessing I'll launch it within a week or two.
Here are beta versions (still need a final proofreading -- in fact, I just noticed an extra comma that needs removing in the back-of-box text ...) of a couple of things ...
Case Cover ... this is a reduced-size JPEG of the front, back, and spine inserts for the VHS-style case that the game will be packaged in.
Rules Pamphlet ... this is intended to be printed back-to-back and tri-folded. As a result, in the provided PDF, you'll need to start reading at the right column of page 1, continue through all of page 2, then return to the left column of page 1.
Scenarios Insert ... this is also intended to be printed back-to-back, then be cut into 3 copies of the same insert. The provided PDF is best read by looking at a single column on page 1, then a single column on page 2.
-Bryk