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[theTrueMikeBrown]

Since July of last year I have been working on designing a card game. It is a Polynesian themed game which tries to achieve a balance between being satisfyingly strategic and simple enough (and short enough) that my wife is willing to play.

I have play-tested it fairly extensively with people from my work and with my extended family, however I have always been present whenever new people were introduced to the game, and because of this the rules documents have not been read by very many people.

I am interested in having people help me read the rule documents to make sure that they make sense without me explaining them, and then play-test the game.

Here is a picasa web album of the cards in the game.

Here is a B&W version of the images.


Here are the rules

In order to make this game available to more than just print and play gamers, I have also made a Vassal module for it.

Here is the module.

Vassal is a board/card game engine.
You can get Vassal here:
http://www.vassalengine.org/download.php

If anyone is interested in printing it up, I have full page pngs with 9 cards per page that can be printed on a color printer and cut out.

If anyone is interested in testing it out, please post here with your intentions (so that we can get some vassal games running online) I do not intend to participate in any games because my goal is to test whether the rules are well written (though if anyone does play a game, I would appreciate a vassal log file of the game so that I can see if anything is done wrong, and correct the rules to make them more obvious.)

tl;dr - post here if you want to help me playtest my card game.

[klingon13524]

You need to add the Mongols as a playable faction.

[Neonivek]

You need to add the Mongols as a playable faction.

There doesn't seem to be factions. Also I am not sure the Mongols would be appropriate.

[theTrueMikeBrown]

It is true - each player is a nondescript islander culture (though most of the gods come from the maori and hawaiian mythologies).

The reason why I made the game was because I wanted a game with the game mechanic that 'islands' provide in this game, and there was not such a game in existence. It could easily become a mongolian, space colonization, or anything else themed game - it is just that I found some good free artwork that was island themed.

By the way, thanks for peeking in and showing support.

[klingon13524]

You need to add the Mongols as a playable faction.

I am not sure the Mongols would be appropriate.

What makes you think that? Polynesia is pretty close to Mexico, isn't it?

[theTrueMikeBrown]

It appears that no-one is interested for the moment in helping me playtest this game? 

If that is true, would someone at least read the rules, and see if they make sense?

[klingon13524]

I won't test until the Mongols are added as a playable faction.

[Sowelu]

Stop being a douche, klingon.

I'll take a look at them after work!

[Neonivek]

I am not a fan of "scoring" games. So that is why I never offered to playtest.

[theTrueMikeBrown]

Thanks Sowelu. I will await your feedback.

Thanks Neonivek for your comment as well (It at least kept this near the top of the fourm without me bumping it or anything)

[Sowelu]

I can't really playtest, but my in first readthrough of the rules, I found the attack/destroy differentiation to be very confusing until I looked back over it a few times.

Is this correct?
- If you 'Attack' a card and destroy¹ it, then its point cards are 'razed' and you permanently gain their point worth. If you attack and destroy¹ an island, do you raze its contents too?
- If you 'Destroy²' a card and destroy¹ it, then it is discarded.  If it was an island, the cards on the island go back to the owner's hand.
- If you 'Steal' a card and destroy¹ it, then it goes into your hand, and you get the option of playing it immediately at its normal cost.  If you steal an island, what happens to the cards on the island?

The two meanings of "destroy" need to be clarified with different terminology.


Clean up step: "All god cards are returned to the gods deck, which is given to the person with the token of the gods’ favor."  What is this "token of the gods' favor"? 

Also, at the beginning, it doesn't specify steps for choosing gods and choosing strategies.  Do you choose your god in secret, or openly?  Choosing a strategy has to be an open selection, I'm assuming, and there's a clear advantage to the second player who can change their strategy choice based on the first's selections  It's okay that there's an advantage, but there needs to be a rule to prevent player 1 from changing their mind.  Otherwise, "I'll be friendly." "Okay, then I'll be brazen." "Did I say friendly, I meant lucky."

It's similarly confusing that there are resource CARDS, and a resource DECK, but not some resource cards are in other decks and there's an action card in the resource deck.  Maybe the resource deck needs a new name.

I'm not sure if it's great to have point cards you currently control be marked on your strategy card.  Presumably they'll change hands a lot.  Why move two tokens and a card, when you can just move the card?


While the cards LOOK good artistically, the font and borders are busy and hard to read.  Lemme find some examples, as well as gameplay things...
- Island cards, upper right:  The "Defense" symbol is off the edge of the white stats-go-here bubble.  Black on dark.
- Tane, upper left:  Not this card only, but black name in cursive font between a dark wavy border and a dark image...not very easy to read.  Whiro is another big issue here.
- Oro: Do you reshuffle after revealing all those cards?  Presumably yes.  If the font was smaller and more legible, there would be more room for details like that.
- Resource cards: They say you can discard them to do extra stuff.  From the context, it looks more like you'd be getting rid of it once it's in play...and that needs a slightly different word than just 'discard', doesn't it?  I think M:tG uses 'Sacrifice' for that, to distinguish from discarding from your hand.
- Army: Should cards with different stats have the same name?
- Card backs should have the name of the deck on them (ie, military deck, god deck) to help people who aren't familiar with the game tell which deck is which.  Or colorblind people.


Any balance issues would have to come up with playtesting...but the point scale seems pretty low, considering some ridiculously brutal combinations.  Like Farmer + Craftsman: Gain 6 points per turn, and you can have that set up on the second turn with just a little luck.  Game over three turns after you get both of those cards.

Strategies:
-The Fruitful strategy looks OP.  Take Discerning your first turn to make sure you get an island to play things on, maybe Discerning instead if you feel lucky, then spam Fruitful the rest of the game: A minimum of +5 goods every turn utterly blows Efficient (-1 good cost per card) out of the water, same with Impelling.  Combine with Farmer + Craftsman for extra lulz.
- The game is WAY too short for Mobile to have any significance...I can barely even see the island support limits coming into play, really. 
- Invader, can't you do that anyway with a steal action?
- Does Lucky work to prevent stealing?  Also, it needs wording clarification.  It sounds like it says "flip a card off the top of the resource deck, and discard it", but it might also mean "discard a card that you drew from the resource deck".

[theTrueMikeBrown]

Hey Sowelu, thanks for reading the rules. I really appreciate the time that you took, and you pointed out many excellent points.

Your assessment of the attack/steal/destroy effects is correct.

If you attack and destroy1 an island, do you raze its contents too?
If you steal an island, what happens to the cards on the island?

To answer your first two questions: If you successfully reduce an island to 0 defense with any card then the island is destroyed/razed/stolen, however any cards on the island are evacuated to the owners hand (unless the destroying card was the 'conquer' card, but that card tells you what to do on the card itself). I will update the rules text to make this clearer

The point that you make about the Attack and Destroy terminology being confusing is a good point. It should be changed. I will try to figure out better names for them.

What is this "token of the gods' favor"?

About the 'Token of the Gods Favor' that was removed from the game. I will update the rules to remove that reference to that token.

Also, at the beginning, it doesn't specify steps for choosing gods and choosing strategies.  Do you choose your god in secret, or openly?  Choosing a strategy has to be an open selection, I'm assuming, and there's a clear advantage to the second player who can change their strategy choice based on the first's selections  It's okay that there's an advantage, but there needs to be a rule to prevent player 1 from changing their mind.  Otherwise, "I'll be friendly." "Okay, then I'll be brazen." "Did I say friendly, I meant lucky."

The strategies are all chosen simultaneously and openly. You can discuss what you are choosing with the other players before you choose (so you can ask people to be friendly with you if you are friendly with them). I have played in around 50 games so far and no-one has ever tried to take back their strategy choice, but perhaps with different groups of people it could happen. I suppose that I should add into the rules that once a strategy is chosen it cannot be changed for that turn. (and add that the strategies are chosen simultaneously).

The god selection is also supposed to be simultaneous - I should add in the same note.

Your point about the Resource Deck and resource cards being confusingly named is a good one too. Perhaps the deck should be named the Economy deck? (To be honest, we refer to them as the 'blue', 'red', 'green', 'yellow' decks when playing)

I'm not sure if it's great to have point cards you currently control be marked on your strategy card.  Presumably they'll change hands a lot.  Why move two tokens and a card, when you can just move the card?

I agree with you completely here (and originally I had it so that only 'permanent' points were recorded on the strategy card), but through play I have had lots of players complaining about the fact that there was not one place to look and see how many points a player has (to know if they need to attack that player to stop them from winning).

Thanks for the feedback about the art - I made it because I used to have white cards with black text, but some play testers asked for me to put pictures on the cards to make them more easily differentiated (and then I kind of got carried away). I was planning on having my graphic designer brother-in-law look at the art, and I will include your feedback when I have him redesign them.

Oro: Do you reshuffle after revealing all those cards?  Presumably yes.  If the font was smaller and more legible, there would be more room for details like that.

With Oro, you do not shuffle after you reveal the cards unless you emptied the entire deck.

Resource cards: They say you can discard them to do extra stuff.  From the context, it looks more like you'd be getting rid of it once it's in play...and that needs a slightly different word than just 'discard', doesn't it?  I think M:tG uses 'Sacrifice' for that, to distinguish from discarding from your hand.

I agree. I will reword that.

- Army: Should cards with different stats have the same name?

Probably not... I Just ran out of names for them, but I should probably put my thinking cap back on.

- Card backs should have the name of the deck on them (ie, military deck, god deck) to help people who aren't familiar with the game tell which deck is which.  Or colorblind people.

Excellent Idea. I will add those

Any balance issues would have to come up with playtesting...but the point scale seems pretty low, considering some ridiculously brutal combinations.  Like Farmer + Craftsman: Gain 6 points per turn, and you can have that set up on the second turn with just a little luck.  Game over three turns after you get both of those cards.

The game does end in three turns most games (though the combo that you listed does not work because craftsmen do not give goods, but give points instead.) A more common game ending is that someone had 16 points exactly on the second turn and everyone beats them up, and then four or so players have 20 or so points each on the third turn. (drawing from the point deck with a scouting party, the discerning strategy and rongo/tu-te-wehi-wehi or maui can give you ~16 points by itself). The only reason why the game ends at 16 points is because I have been trying to make it end in ~.5 hrs. I prefer to play longer games (and prefer to play to 32 points).

-The Fruitful strategy looks OP.  Take Discerning your first turn to make sure you get an island to play things on, maybe Discerning instead if you feel lucky, then spam Fruitful the rest of the game: A minimum of +5 goods every turn utterly blows Efficient (-1 good cost per card) out of the water, same with Impelling.  Combine with Farmer + Craftsman for extra lulz.

The fruitful strategy _is_ chosen fairly often in play. it is mainly effective to get out large cards, however 5 goods =.625 pts unless you have cards in your hand to play for points. The most commonly chosen strategies (in games that I have played at work during lunch) are: Friendly (two underdogs will pick that very often and point it at each other), Stingy (One extra card kept not only effects you this turn but also next turn), and discerning (looking at extra cards means that you have a better chance of gaining the cards that you really need). Fruitful is probably picked fourth after the aforementioned three strategies.

- The game is WAY too short for Mobile to have any significance...I can barely even see the island support limits coming into play, really. 

I agree - I should probably fix this one

- Invader, can't you do that anyway with a steal action?

Yes, but you have to have a steal card in your hand (and there are not too many of those) (I suddenly realize that I never posted the number copies of each card in each deck (I should do that))

- Does Lucky work to prevent stealing?  Also, it needs wording clarification.  It sounds like it says "flip a card off the top of the resource deck, and discard it", but it might also mean "discard a card that you drew from the resource deck".

Yes, it prevents stealing, and yes, it means that you should flip the top card of the deck. I will clarify the wording (I originally had it such that you had to flip a coin, but i decided that revealing and then discarding the top card from the resource deck would make fewer part necessary)

Thank you again for looking at the rules

I will make updates and then post the new rules when I have finished them.

[Sowelu]

Half an hour?  Hm...  Usually if I go through the effort of pulling out a card game, I aim for at least an hour of play.  I can see how an hour-long game would seem very long while still playtesting it, but if you're going through the trouble to pull the box off the shelf and get everyone to sit down together...  But then, that's a case where you'd have more real-world experience.  Personally I would suggest bumping the normal "win" condition up to 32, and say "If you want to play a shorter game, here's how".

Actually, that's another good question, how many players is this balanced for?  It looks like it could work with two, it looks like it could work with four, but the target point numbers might need to be moved a little bit, or not.  The fact that you play this with >4 players is a little mind-blowing for me.

[theTrueMikeBrown]

I agree that half an hour is too short for a real game. I am going to change the rules so that 32 points is the normal game end condition. The reason why it was 16 is because one of my best playtesters is my wife, and she doesn't like playing hour long games (that doesn't prevent me from changing the rules to make it a longer game and then just playing the shorter variant each time that I play with her)

About play size. The original game has been tested with 2-4 players pretty extensively. Sometimes the decks run a bit dry with 4 players (which necessitates more combat to get enough resource cards to have a good economy) Once I started getting more players at my playtest sessions I added in the three expansions (each expansion adds enough cards for two more players to comfortably play).

With all of the expansions, the game 'should' work for 10 players (though I have never gotten more than 8 players at a time, so the upper bounds have not been tested well)

I have posted a new version of the rules (To include the suggested fixes, and some other things that I recently noticed) here.

I also added in a section of the document that tells how many copies of each card is supposed to be included in the game.
I would estimate (though I have no hard data to back this up) that I have played ~25 2 player games, ~15 3-4 player games, ~8 5-6 player games and ~2 7-8 player games.

I feel pretty confidant about the card balance with up to 8 players (if you include all of the expansions), and with the base game if you have up to 4 players.