Everest Playtests!

Matthew was kind enough to lend me his (beautifully made) prototype of Everest to bring back to Tucson with me and play with my friends. In return I thinkit's only fair to play the game exactly as he had written it and let him (and you all) know how it went. Here's a summary of my first 4 games of Everest:

Games 1 and 2, with Chris and his wife Becky:

These were my first 2 games of course, so I didn't know what to expect except what Matthew had told me. It was a three player game, so based on what he said I figure'd we'd be spread out at the beginning and if there was any interaction at all, it'd be at the top. I wasn't too suprised to find that Becky placed 2 spaces away from me, but it DID suprise me a little that Chris placed right in between us.

I wasted an action Exploring and placing an 8 Snow in front of Chris, which we all agreed later was pointless as he could simply go around it. Furthermore, we noticed in both games that it was never very difficult to climb. We always had plenty of skill. Once in a while near the top we'd have to use energy. Actually in the first game I tried a strategy of taking initial guys with 2 energy slots each, then I hired 1 guy and started up the mountain. I figured I'd get climbing (using Energy if need be), get those first few points in for hitting the tiers first, then camp and rest while the others cought up (they both sat back for 2 or 3 turns hiring guys and drawing sponser cards).

There was a statistical anomoly that occurred in both games that really skewed our judgement. When pulling tiles each turn during the Daily Update we pulled an inordinate number of FALL tiles out. This made Blind Climbing pretty safe, and we did that more often than Exploring. Poor Becky happened to hit a FALL tile every time she Blind Climbed (like 3 or 4 times that game), but otherwise it was pretty easy to do. After playing games 3 and 4 I see how it's usually a lot scarier to Blind Climb.

Games 3 and 4, with Marc (engineer friend from high school) and Fletcher (a high school kid):
A LOT more Exploring was done. Also, in these games it WAS actually possible to "block" someone by putting an '8' in front of them, and in fact I did that in each of those 2 games. The first one I won (points) and in the second one Fletcher won on the last turn by climbing the summit. I had blocked the middle of the third tier down, and had several chances to block Fletcher's path but didn't think to. He went "around" and didn't FALL at the summit In fact he drew a 6 Rock tile and had EXACTLY enough energy to climb it!

Here are the initial changes that everyone agrees should be made:
1. Tile Colors- Ice and Snow more distinct. Also, consider doing the numbers differently (they are also Black, Blue, and White...) Printing the numbers in Black would probably be fine... making Rock more light gray if need be.
2. Glory Point labelling - we talked about that. Just put the numbers on the board (instead of letters)
3. Base Camp tiles are unnecessary- just put a camp there. Though I can see reasons to keep it.
4. Possibly cap the number of climbers or something. Too easy to climb if you hire 3 guys first.
5. We like the Draft. Good call there.
6. Climber Skill - Consider making all 4's into 5's and all 1's into 0's (keep 2s and 3s the same I guess). This makes it matter more what terrain you're climbing. Otherwise you end up with too balanced a team even if you try not to.

That's all for now. Expect more later.

- Seth

Reply from Matthew
Thanks much for the report. A couple of quick questions, if you don't mind:

How were the first two games won, by points or via the summit? I'm guessing summit because of the Fall tile thing, but just checking.

I'm curious about groupthink in both games, but particularly the first two. You noted that it was easy climbing for most of the games once you built up a team... did no one start climbing sooner to grab some early points? Just curious. Remember that I've never seen the game with the draft, so I'm not sure how much that affects things.

I'm glad that in the later games there was clearly enough difficulty climbing that one of them was won by points.

The thing I'm most curious about -- and I understand if this is something you want to save until later -- but how was the gameplay? Was there any tension? Did decisions seem meaningful? Did actual strategies come out over time?

Thanks again very much,
Matthew

My reply back
FastLearner wrote:
How were the first two games won, by points or via the summit? I'm guessing summit because of the Fall tile thing, but just checking.

I'm trying to remember. I think the first was via climbing (Chris won the turn before I was likely going to climb the summit- Becky was way behind because she fell so much). I think the second was won by Becky- she did a very good job of using Chris' path to climb with ease, and she beat him to the base camp he wanted to build. He Blind Climbed to the next space and fell, and was behind from there on. between Becky and I there were 3 camps in a row before the summit (along the side of the mountain), so he had to climb sideways just to build a camp-
This brings up an interesting question- if you fork like that, then later fall, do you go to the NEAREST camp? Or the Base Camp in that case (you can't fall back UP the fork)?
That screwed him out of the victory. I had one shot to climb the summit, but by that time the FALLs had shuffled back in and the chances weren't good, and I fell. Then Becky went and didn't fall.

There may be a slight problem with luck of the draw to win the game. Several times it came down to "did you draw the right tile"... either a fall to lose, or a non fall to win. Or in the case of tonight, Fall or 8 rock to lose, anything else to win. I guess good planning and good play will make that 'lucky draw' more likely to be in your favor, but it was still a coin toss much of the time. However I sort of like the idea of the last turn being all exciting "Do you make it, or do I win by points?" But it necessarily makes for a lighter game, because all your hard work is cancelled by a lucky draw.

FastLearner wrote:
You noted that it was easy climbing for most of the games once you built up a team... did no one start climbing sooner to grab some early points?
Actually, I only hired 1 guy, then the next turn I started climbing. That strategy totally worked (especially with all the inviting Blind Climbing), but I made 2 big mistakes that I think cost me the game. I wasted a turn placing an 8 in front of Chris (firt play of the game), and later, near the top, I did something sub-optimal... I forget exactly what. I think I couldn't build a camp and I should have gotten more sponser cards or something... I ran out of cash and that stalled me too much.

Becky hired 2 guys and then tried to climb a bit, and fell. Then she was down a guy and so hired again or something. She had it bad that game, nothing went her way.

Chris waited 3 turns hiring guys before he even started climbing, and no climb was too tough for him until the very top, and even then I think he finished with a lot of energy left.

FastLearner wrote:
I'm glad that in the later games there was clearly enough difficulty climbing that one of them was won by points.

Yes, they were good. All 4 games were over on the last turn or 2, maybe 3. The timing seems to be good.

FastLearner wrote:
The thing I'm most curious about -- and I understand if this is something you want to save until later -- but how was the gameplay? Was there any tension? Did decisions seem meaningful? Did actual strategies come out over time?

So far so good. I think the decisions are in the right direction... but the different decisions are not different enough. I think strategies are coming out, time will tell better.

Ooo... an idea. Fletcher just mentioned that there ought to be some way you could interact with terrain in addition to just climbing on it. Like for example, if you specialize in Snow climbing (in addition to being weaker in other areas as mentioned before), then maybe you should be able to somehow make snow tiles easier for you to get or something- maybe harder for everyone (and you are better equipped to deal with it).

I think he's saying that you should be able to guarantee you get snow if you Explore, which I think is bad (that's the danger of specializing). BUT I think the Weather could make more of a difference- for example:

Clear Skies- nothing special
Windy- harder to climb on rock (+2? +3?)
Gale - hearder to climb on ice (+2? +3?)
Blizzard- harder to climb in snow (+2? +3?)
Avalanche- nothing special

This might mean a slight re-structuring of the weather cards- right now the names correspond directly with the difficulty, but with something like the above, there could be something like two 2's, two 4's, and 2 6's of each (windy, gale, and blizzard), then 3 each of Clear Skies and Avalanche.

It gives you more interesting things to do in the Daily Update, depending on how you've set up your team (and how others have theirs set up).

Also, I think the amount of weather cards should increase... Seems like you should still be able to draw an Avalanche even after one has gone by. (I don't know if I explained that well)

FastLearner wrote:
Thanks again very much

Again, you're very welcome. I'm having a great time playing your game. It's very good... maybe not as good as Settlers or PR, but very good nonetheless.

- Seth