[GB] Notes from May-9 playtest

[Mike]

M-SEC-007 should read "You take control of the Godball from adjacent opponent."

[Mike]

R-SPE-004 Aphrodite's Girdle clarify that player playing card chooses direction of movement. Either all move toward or all move away.

[Mike]

Sprint AND Move can be used to Stand Up.

Standing up after being knocked down counts as 1 hex of movement. There is no hex cost when using movement to stand.

[Mike]

H-SEC-002

[Mike]

Clarify the sheep.

Throwing "between" Pillar and Goal.

[Mike]

Note for discussion? Goaltending only works against kicks and throws. If I run it in and you are standing there, it counts for me. Ball immediately zaps to Mt Olympus, and if I can't pay to move all the way through, I bounce back to the hex I started in.

[Mike]

I will note to make sure Godball is covered in push/slide rules.
Just double-checking.

[Mike]

Movethrough. Needs much clarifying.

I would suggest that you cannot move into an occupied hex unless you have the actions, resources, AND room to complete a movethrough. Even if you don't actually complete the move for whatever reason, you had to at least have had the potential to complete it to even make the attempt.

[Eliahad]

General Thoughts:

It's still fun!

Needs more testing! But we have a thing that can be tested multiple times before making big changes. It'll be the details that need the tweaking. Lots of details, and lots of tweaking.

Wowie scored a point! He had a good draw, and played it optimally. He countered Mike's shot, and took the opportunities when they came up.

The game is better now than it was however many months ago those first games happened, November, I guess? There is flow, there are combos, there are counters, there are opportunities. You feel fragile, but not too fragile. Flame called your HP pool a sponge. It's up to you to see how much you can squeeze it.

Oh my goodness does Aphrodite have some cool powers. So does Hera and Hermes, for that matter. Zeus does, too, but he might need some punching up. Not in power, just in interesting. That's just a feeling, needs more testing.

Perseus had a bad day.

When asked, Wowie thought that the components did a good job of keeping the player on track with what they were capable of on a turn.

Other things: The weight of the game is heavier than it looks. Is it too heavy for the theme-ing and target audience of the game? Have we considered the target audience for the game? It feels family-ish to me, but with enough complexity to appeal to the adults and more hardcore among us.

Is there too much luck? It's hard to have a long term strategy, you react to an ever changing game state. On the other hand, that's kind of how soccer works. You have a general strategy, but you constantly improvise and adapt it to the situation you have in front of you.

I know that I never felt out of control. I felt like I was well defended, particularly at the end when Aphrodite (Mike) laid that curse card on me. I also felt like Wowie and Flame came up with good strategies to overcome another of my attacks. And I STILL felt like I had options, even when I was beat. That was a good sign to me, but I'm not sure everyone would feel that way if they were in my situation. Hrmm.

[FlameBlade]

Now that things have brewed and fermented in my head...mmm beer.

We need to do more playtests. But right now, I think the thing that slows us down considerably is...

Reading the cards!

We won't need to worry too much about this until later, once we get things solidified. But each time we try to tweak, we need to think about complex cards, and how to make it easy to follow along. Maybe break main ideas in chunks.

"Place sheep token anywhere on board

Anytime during your turn do:

Blah blah."

[FlameBlade]

not listed:

Protocol for selection of gods? Heroes? favored terrain?

Right now, we just kinda select whatever we feel like it, but...ultimately, we'll need some ways of "breaking" the impasse if necessary.

[Mike]

Favored terrain will ultimately not be a choice. Each hero will simply come with a favored terrain.

As for hero/god selection...

Each player must select one hero and one god. If there is any dispute over who should get what, the group will need to sort it out like adults. If you can't handle that, then it is not recommended that you play board games together.

Or...

All the cards in the Hermes deck are numbered 1-30. Everyone draw one card and highest number goes first.

Or...

Everyone pitch the Godball at the board from a distance of at least 2 feet. Whoever gets it to land on the board closest to Mt. Olympus gets to choose first.

Or...

Shortest player picks first.

[Eliahad]

[FlameBlade]

[Wowie]

I propose sorting out who gets to go first by an actual game of six way soccer in the middle of a natural disaster. /joke

In all seriousness, count me in on "sort it out like adults". I want that suggestion in the rulebook verbatim.

[Mike]

Adults it is then! It's going in.

[Eliahad]

We're doing a pretty good job of limiting counter-intuitive rules, I think. There are still a couple left, I think.

Goaltending is one that hadn't really been an issue before this test. I'm still not sure of the best way to handle it.

Scoring might be on that list, too.

Any I'm forgetting? Cards might generate even more, of course.

[FlameBlade]

Need a full playtest. All 12 or 16 rounds.

[Eliahad]

[Mike]

Agreed. Feels more sport-bally that way.