Would anyone be interested in reading my rules? It's a two page document. I need to work all the kinks out of it.
Help with rules clarity
Fri, 03/25/2016 - 20:17
Sat, 03/26/2016 - 06:06
#1
Hello
I'm up for helping. I've sent you a PM.
Rob
Sat, 03/26/2016 - 15:18
#2
Happy to help as
Happy to help as well...perhaps post a Google Docs link?
Mon, 03/28/2016 - 12:12
#4
Comments
How To Play, #2. Player may take any card from the discard pile? Or only the top one. I assume only the top one. Must a player take a card at all? (Possibly he has exactly the cards he needs to go out, so doesn't want to take another card.)
How To Play, #4. The Player must discard a card from his hand without playing it, ending his turn. If he doesn't have a card to discard, or if he discards his last card, he Goes Out. (It's annoying/confusing that you use the phrase 'Go Out' but don't define it until later.)
How To Play, #8. Using the term "Step" differently here? Perhaps you meant "Round."
Personally, I prefer a top-down approach to rules. i.e.
Setup. (This was fine.)
Goal: Complete all your Steps by fulfilling the condition described in each Step.
Play: A series of Rounds. At the end of each Round, each player determines if his current Step has been fulfilled. Note that even if a player fulfills the Step's conditions in the middle of a Round, his careful work might be undone before it ends. A Round ends when any player has no cards in his hand.
Round: Each Player gets 10 Main Deck cards (his Hand) and 2 Stumble cards for the round. When any Player's Hand is depleted, the Round is immediately over.
etc.
Mon, 03/28/2016 - 12:51
#5
Zag's advice is good, here's mine:
Looks like a contender for a mass-market game, given the simplicity of the ruleset and familiar mechanics involved. Lots of people on this forum are more fans of euro games, or games with more theme and complexity, but you seem to be aiming for the mass-market, which is fine. However, mass market games tend to struggle with the following points, which means that you should think about ways to overcome them, even if you don't go all the way to becoming a designer game.
Things mass-market games struggle with (usually):
-Opportunities to make choices - often, common games don't let players make a whole lot of choices, or they present false choices, such as choosing a card to discard without knowing whether it's a smart idea to discard a specific card or a different one.
-Downtime - often, these games struggle with turn length. Try to find ways to reduce the time it takes to take a turn.
-Length - make sure that the game doesn't drag on too long. Does you game play well with just 3 steps? How long does it take to play with the 7 as recommended? for a game this simple, I think that you want to keep the game time below 45 minutes, or people will get tired of it.
-Skipping turns - Tying into the downtime issue, skipping turns is the worst - not only do you not get to make any choices, but you have to sit through another round of turns before you can play. Try to remove "skipping" opportunities in the game.
-"Gotcha" cards - if everything that you've worked toward is immediately undone, it's frustrating, and it makes the whoe affair take on a Sisyphean aire, meaning people ask "why am I playing?" If an opponent can undo in 1 turn what you built in 5, the game can feel like an exercise in futility.
How do stumbles interfere with others? Does it prevent an opponent from scoring their step? If so, there's strong incentive to always be using stumbles if you're losing, since you can't win. Have you tried playtesting with a player just stumbling others (since you're allowed an infinite number of stumbles because you re-draw them after using them)?
Do your steps require different numbers of cards? If so, since you can only draw one card per turn, you may end up making steps that need more cards a little too draining on your limited resources to achieve.
What elements of choice does a player get on their turn? Can they trade cards with each other, or are they forced to live off the luck of the draw in order to get the cards they need to score sets?
Also, to make the game go a little smoother, you might consider allowing players to draw cards after their turn instead of before, allowing them to think about their options between turns (reducing downtime).
I hope I've given you a few things to think about. I'm not trying to criticize, I'm just trying to help your game be as fun as it can be.
Mon, 03/28/2016 - 12:52
#6
Your rules are well composed,
Your rules are well composed, however I think you could benefit from some images of the cards, along with an "anatomy of the cards" explanation. Perhaps it's because I'm a more visual person, but I can't help but think that some images would make the game "click" in people's minds much easier.
Your Objective should be a clear statement of the goal(s) of the game, however I found it confusing as I have no idea what a Step or Stumble actually is. Perhaps a bit more explanation as to what these types of cards generally do within the game. Something like "Step cards are played in sequence and each have a unique set of number/color cards which you must collect from the Main Deck in order to proceed to the next Step. Stumble cards feature rule changes, play modifiers and other ways to mess with your opponents and prevent their Steps from being completed."
I went to your Facebook page, and had an "aha!" moment once I saw the cards...it was truly worth 1000 words for me!
File is uploaded to google docs with commenting turned on.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bz_FHdd0nUxiY2pOT0tPZC15V0k
Thank you to everyone that is taking time to do this.