You can find some older posts about this game in the archive: http://archive.bgdf.com/tiki-view_blog.php?blogId=65
There have been several more playtests of "the Hands" in the last month and several changes have been made. The game is shaping up nicely, but I need to do more playtests with four or five players.
Important changes:
The board.
* The board has no more hexes or triangles. It only has regions, so movement is easier: Go to a destination and feed your creature one food. After each action, a player may visit up to three destinations and pick up/drop off followers and or resources.
=> This has been a mayor improvement in the gameplay.
The oasis:
* There's only one oasis now where every player may sacrifice a follower and start a food generating ritual. The player who controls the obilisk on the oasis, receives VPs when other players generate food.
=> The oasis is more fun now. It also makes the "fertile lands"-miracle something every player wants (except the one that is allready controlling the obilisk at the oasis)
The Miracle/Disaster-deck:
* Every player used to have his own deck, now there's one deck that is shared by all players.
=> This change makes players sometimes choose a miarcle because of the disaster on the same card that they really don't want another player to perform.
* A miracle gives you a miracle token, a disaster takes a miracle token away. Miracle tokens make your faith stronger, so the chances are bigger that you must feed all players during the feeding-phase and score points.
=> The miracle tokens are good, because it makes for more miracles in the early game and postpones the disasters till later in the game.
Feeding-phase:
* Scoring for feeding generated too much points, and could become a burden when playing with more that three players. I changed the feeding phase into "feeding yourself in uneven rounds" and "feeding everybody and scoring points in even rounds"
=> This was also a mayor improvement. It makes players not return home for the feeding/scoring at the end of each round, but now player can plan more over two rounds. (I might have to cut down the creature deck a little, as creatures stay in play longer this way...)
There were some other changes that deal with removing fiddlyness. I feel I have succeeded there: There is a lot less moving around of resources on the board due to a player-aid board that represents your village or your creature (if you control one) and gives an overview of the available actions.
Attached is an image of the board.
More later.
Cheese!
