I was very surprised to make it into the final eight considering this was literally my first game. I'd like to know what people found appealing and unappealing about the game. Was it too simple? Didn't offer enough choices? Was the theme important? Did the lack of images in the post throw you off? I really liked this competition and I'll be sure to enter the next one, see you there.
Rainbow Dice Feedback
Tue, 03/22/2011 - 14:55
Wed, 03/23/2011 - 16:29
#1
Rainbow
During the first round voting in the Feb GDS, I voted primarily based on two considerations, in addition to my general impression of the rules:
1) Did the entry meet the requirements?
2) Did the theme interest me?
For this entry, I liked the color theme as a way to teach young kids about mixing primary colors (red and yellow make orange, etc). The small number of players is well suited to kids, since kids tend to get restless if they have to wait a long time for their next turn. However, Tasty Minstrel indicated that they were looking for a game for 2+ players with "the more the better", so I felt that at 2-3 players this entry didn't meet the intent of the original request as well as games that allowed more players.
Here is my critique:
Good
- I assumed that the target audience is kids, in which case the color theme is great. It might not be so great if your target audience was experienced gamers. I voted for Rainbow on the basis that it was the only submission suitable for young kids, which is what made it stand out amongst the other entries.
- I like the mechanic of starting with a low number of dice and building up, and it has a natural "catch up" mechanic because with a low number of dice you're likely to get more of them the same.
- For a kid's game, the lack of strategic options is fine. There is a small amount of choice, and a "reward" mechanism of getting to pick up the cards when you get a match.
Suggestions for Improvement
- The estimated play time is listed as "I don’t really know, fairly short", which indicates a lack of playtesting. Also, I would dispute the "fairly short" assumption. From reading the rules, I think this game could go on for a long time trying to get the same color to get an extra die. I would suggest reducing the winning condition to a smaller dice pool (e.g. 9 dice - rainbow = red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple; blinding white = 3 whites), which also reduces the number of dice required or increases the supported number of players.
- Consider removing the more complicated cards, especially the one which are "white + secondary color" that have a choice of two abilities, and the multi-secondary-color cards. In keeping with the kids audience, I think the choice of special abilities on the card would get too much to work out what to do with it (analysis paralysis). Too many different cards could also lead to analysis paralysis in working out which cards they could pick up. In return, you could put in multiples of the simpler cards.
Well done on your game submission. I wish you all the best.
Regards,
kos
Thu, 03/24/2011 - 19:31
#3
.
I'm glad that you found the feedback to be helpful.
I entered "Geomancer" in the competition.
Regards,
kos
Fri, 03/25/2011 - 06:14
#4
Hey that's great, Geomancer
Hey that's great, Geomancer was one of my favourites and I really liked the overall theme and design.
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 20:59
#5
Playtested
I finally had a chance to playtest my game. I played pretty well and everyone had fun though I spotted a few problems. It ran about thirty minutes, which is about twice as long as I was expecting. Near the end especially game play slowed down and players lost their sense of progress and engagement. I was thinking to fix some of these problems I'm going reduce the number of dice needed to win, probably to nine or less from the original twelve. There's one problem that seems inherent to the game as it is, the lack of meaningful descision. The game is essentially luck based and while it's still fairly fun there was a lot of cursing of ill fortune.
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 20:59
#6
Playtested
I finally had a chance to playtest my game. I played pretty well and everyone had fun though I spotted a few problems. It ran about thirty minutes, which is about twice as long as I was expecting. Near the end especially game play slowed down and players lost their sense of progress and engagement. I was thinking to fix some of these problems I'm going reduce the number of dice needed to win, probably to nine or less from the original twelve. There's one problem that seems inherent to the game as it is, the lack of meaningful descision. The game is essentially luck based and while it's still fairly fun there was a lot of cursing of ill fortune.
Actually I didn't really get to playtest the game at all. I'm currently in Belgium as an exchange student and didn't actually have enough dice or someone to playtest with so I only did a solo playtest up to about seven dice. The reason there's so many dice is because that's how many is required to make the colours of the rainbow ROY G BIV and the reason there's some strange cards in there is because I was trying to fill in the space between 12 and the lower range.
Actually when I made the game I wasn't thinking specifically of kids, just I had thought the contest was supposed to be to a large degree about simplicity so I tried to make the game as simple as possible. Looking at it though, it really is a kids game. The reason I said fairly quickly is because when solo testing I went through the first seven dice in about 10 minutes and while I figured the latter half of the game would last longer things were still moving very quickly. I agree there is too many cards, I guess I got into the trap of reading the 18 cards or less as just 18 cards.
Thanks a lot for your critique, it's very helpful and clearly written and explained. Were you also in the competition and if so which game was yours?