Playtest Session 1
16 Feb 2014
This was the first-ever game playtested for Mole Majority. I played two iterations of a two-player game to see how broken things were at first blush. Results were satisfying, and fixes came decisively. Here's a quick summary:
- Players will start on a 6-point hex at the beginning of the game. There's four of them included in the original 19 hexes, so that's perfect.
- Players draw a single card at the end of their turn, instead of a full hand of five cards. This cushions those responding to an aggressive player. I also added in that a player draws a full complement of five cards at the end of a turn where they've exhausted their hand completely, which will likely add incentive to card combos and aggressive play.
- I added a RESUPPLY bonus to some cards, with a value of +1 or +2. To RESUPPLY, take a mole from your mole pool and place it on any hex where you already have a claim token. This increases aggressiveness (since a player will know they can instantly fill in an empty spot after expanding to another hex), and adds some much-needed usefulness to the NUMBER 1 cards. It is now played in addition to any other card on that player's turn. The result is a smaller hand for future turns, but that's not a big deal as there are additional ways to return a full complement of cards to your hand.
The HAWK cards have resupply bonuses added to them, either +1 or +2. Otherwise it seemed like a less-effective move than to play a NUMBER card. I may also add it to FORE! cards in the future. We'll see if they're valuable enough as they are in future playtests.
- I wrote the point values of the hexes on the hexes themselves, so that it's easy to determine how many points it's worth at end-of-game scoring.
- I suspect I'll be changing the layout for games featuring different numbers of players. 9 hexes for a two-player game seemed just right, if a bit short. But further testing will determine if a 19-hex game is too long and drawn-out to be satisfying. Perhaps the additional mechanics I've added in will help facilitate a longer game without it becoming boring.
- It seemed like the First Player was at a disadvantage, so now the First Player draws an additional two cards to start their turn. This may trickle down to larger-player games, but needs testing. For example, a four-player game could be as follows:
- Player 1's starting hand is 7 cards.
- Player 2's starting hand is 6.
- Player 3's starting hand is 5.
- Player 4's starting hand is 4.
I'm fairly confident, however, that only the starting player's hand needs to be adjusted. We'll see how it shakes out in further playtesting.
- I want to determine a way for the NUMBER 2 cards to be more useful. They seem lowly at the moment, and are currently less valuable than the NUMBER 1 cards (which can be added on to another card as a RESUPPLY move). I want to experiment with ways to build barriers of some sort, which will prevent moles from moving across one edge of a hex. Adding an asterisk "*" to one of the NUMBER 2 cards in a player's deck will indicate this, at the moment. I had some spare yellow cubes which will stand in as barriers. We'll see how this changes gameplay, and whether or not they help add more worthwhile decisions to a player's turn.
- I'm thinking of adding modifiers to the different hexes themselves, but I'm not sure how to go about doing it just yet. Modify points? This could easily be determined with illustrating different golf course hazards or whatever on them.
- About the Golf Theme: when I was seeking mole illustration clipart, I noticed that a number of them were paired up with a golf course. I had honestly forgotten about the "Caddyshack" films, so this wasn't immediately in mind when I conceived the mole theme, to be honest. But I don't see a problem with it. I could even switch the animals from moles to groundhogs, and make this into a Caddyshack fangame...Well, I suppose one must be a fan first to legitimately make a fangame for something. Then this wouldn't quite qualify. :)
