Post Play-Test

[JimMerritt]

Play tested quite a few games and everything went pretty well. Here's a recap and callouts:

Rules Played

Turn Order

• Rounds of three turns. Player A had 2 turns, Player B had 1 turn. Flopped three cards. Player B had 2 turns, Player A had 1 turn. Flopped three cards. And so on.
• Minority card holder in first draw went first.

The Jokers!

We did not have rules for the Jokers so we set them aside for these play-tests.

The Twos!!

• 2's were assassins. A player could use any face up two to remove one family member from the board.
• If a player drew a two, they had to remove one of their own family members from the board. If they did not have a family member active, their castle took one damage.
• A player could not pick up a face-up two unless their opponent had an active family member.

The Number Cards!!

• Number cards from 3 - 9 were used to either attack your opponent or to fortify your own castle. Players could only use number cards of suits that matched an active castle they owned.
• Fortifications were the value of the number card. Attacking cards were the value of that card. There were no bonuses or penalties.
• There could only be one fortification per castle.
• A castle could not be attacked while a fortification was in place.

The Family Members!!

• Family members were only picked up by the players who owned a castle of their suit. When face up, they were not kidnapped.
• You could not pick up your opponent's face cards. If you drew your opponent's face cards, you had to discard them (usually very reluctantly!!)
• The number of family members determined the attack strength against castles but not fortifications.
• Family members could be captured when a castle took damage. They could also be rescued when damaging a castle.
• There was no limit to the number of family members able to be captured and held in one castle.

Aces and Tens!!

• The remaining Ace and Ten cards were put into circulation in the draw deck.
• You could not pick up your opponent's Ace or Ten if they were face up. If you drew your opponents Ace or Ten, you had to discard it.
• A player could not pick up their Ten until they had their Ace of the same suit.
• An Ace did not become an active castle until a player had both the Ace and the Ten.

Recap

Overall

Everything went really well. The combat was balanced and the cards were balanced. There was a definite streak of bad luck for a couple people but overall it was very successful. One aspect I didn't think about until playing was that there was a slight shift when one player had a ton of cards in play (like a fort, castles, family members, etc.) and the other did not. It affects the pool of cards slightly so as to offer a nice balance. Doesn't really affect anything, but it was noticeable during play.

The Twos!!!!!!

Oh man, those twos! They were frustratingly impactful across all games. Having them as both an attack oriented assassination as well as the blind pickup of the twos made it so the twos became the cards with the most 'character'. They impact the face-up cards, the blind draws and the family member strategies. Making it so a player could use them no matter the suit made them even better.

All in all, I really enjoyed the twos. They added a lot to the games played and their impact was palpable. It felt like they were in a really good spot.

Forts and Attacking

This system functioned pretty well. The games took some time to develop and it was rare to have someone get completely destroyed with no chance of winning. Even in one of the more lopsided games, it came down to a string of very, very bad luck to finally make it so he didn't have a chance.

Overall, these seemed to work. Forcing a player to choose between defending and attacking makes it very dynamic. No one came up with a dominant strategy of 'always leave your castle open' or 'always play the top fortification card' or anything like that. There were some significant choices each player had to make based on their situation.

The Turn Order

Loved the system you came up with. It works so well, adding that extra dimension of staggered turns. The only drawback was one of the major areas of concern:

It became very, very easy to lose track of whose turn it was and when to flop the three cards.

We began using a system of passing the deck back and forth. When a player went first, they would have the deck in front of them. After their second turn, they would flop the cards and pass the deck to the other player, who would then go first. Following that player's second turn, they would flop the cards and hand the deck back to the original player, who would then go first.

This seemed to help a bit. There may be no way around this since the turn order system is awesome and adds so much depth to it, but it's something to think through. Ultimately, I don't think there's a way to force players to keep track of the turns, but it would be cool to offer a solution that we find useful. All in all, this was the only frustrating part of gameplay.

Royal Family

These guys were underwhelming. I'm not sure the best way to solve that. The twos were so impactful and memorable, these guys were just like, 'meh, another face card I guess'. Their biggest impact was the ability to attack the opponent's castle.

I'm not sure about the abilities. I love the idea of abilities, but playing without them felt very very comfortable. There just wasn't anything that made the face cards unique. Adding abilities might complicate it to a less comfortable level. But, that could also add some more depth to the game. Not sure. I'd love to hash out some ability concepts and test them out.

Kidnapping and Rescue

This section kind of relates to the previous.

I kept the lackadaisical kidnap and rescue in place from when I played with Kelly and the same issues came up. I agree there has to be a limit to it, and having the single member capacity limit could help. It wasn't overly difficult to remove family members, really. It seemed more difficult to keep them, actually, so maybe your original idea of capacity is really what is needed.

Maybe for attacks, if you have a King, you can kill a King. And a Queen can kill a Queen, and Jack a Jack. Something like that. Here are my concerns:

• Being able to remove all family members from your opponent's castle limits them to not being able to do much of anything. That could be really frustrating.
• Being able to hold all your opponent's family members made it so they couldn't win. If all their family members were kidnapped, they couldn't attack the castle, and therefore couldn't get them back without having another castle from which they could attack.
• Kidnapping is fun, but maybe it's better to push the cards back into circulation. Maybe you can kidnap one family member, and all other attacks will kill a family member. That would guarantee one player couldn't stagnate when all their family members were captured, but it could also allow the removal of an opponents family members without requiring a two.

Ideas for Jokers

Jokers can be a really fun wild card somehow. The only thing I can think of is an assassin you can hold onto. Draw a Joker and keep it in your castle until you want to send it out to remove a family member. The twos require immediate action and can be covered up. The Jokers would be persistent.

I also like the idea of interrupting your opponent's action or family ability, when we get those in place.

Maybe each player begins with one Joker. When they use that Joker for ................, the Joker is discarded and will reenter play like normal. Then, if a player draws the Joker, they can hold onto it to do ............ again. (The dots mean I don't know what they could be used for : ) )

Anyway!!

Enough rambling. Overall, everything went really well. The big concerns were the difficulty in keeping our turns straight and the underwhelming aspect of the Royal Family cards. The turn order might just be par for the course, but finding a way to make the Royal Family more impactful based on what is in your castle will improve engagement quite a bit. That would make assassination targets more important, captures and kidnappings more important, and card selection more important. Overall, that will probably be the biggest challenge since everything else ran really well and balanced.

If I missed anything, I'll let you know.