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[theTrueMikeBrown]

I have been making a card game called Dancing Robots since November. It takes about 30 minutes to play, and involves building robots and having them dance against each other. Players take turns drafting cards for their robots, and when someone is ready they call a dance off.

The game is supposed to be fairly light hearted, but it does involve strategy.

Since I am a software engineer I also put together a quick website where people can play the game against each other or a rudimentary AI.

Right now I am asking for some help to playtest the game. I am not looking for feedback about the visual aspects of the game or the website at the present time, just the balance of the game and the understandability of the rules document.

The rule portion of the attached document is 2.5 pages long, so it is not that hard a read (the cards and an example play are also on there for any PnPers as well as anyone who thought that an example play would be useful). Please read the rules before trying to play the game. The website does not teach people how to play, it just enables play (similar to isotropic dominion for those who used to play on that.)

If you have comments that are related to the usability of the website, or the card appearance/layout I would be happy to hear them, but keep in mind that I view both of those aspects of the game as ephemeral, so unless there is something horribly wrong it will probably take lower priority than rules changes or card balancing.

The website is here.
The rules/PnP document is here.

Thanks for your help.

[HopFlash]

you're right...reading the manual is necessary

I think it is a nice variant of card game.
I've played against the AI and the first round it was a head to head run but in the second run the AI had not managed to sucessfully make any move. I don't know if it was a bug or very bad luck.

About balancing I'm not sure...it seems that the whole thing is very luck based about what starting moves you have and what cards a revealed to take.

I will try some more rounds to see how it works out with the luck (but I don't know when I have time)

But could you increase the "font" size of the symbols?
In the manual I can identify a break-dancer, stick-with-hat etc. but ingame it is a little bit small.

[theTrueMikeBrown]

Hey HopFlash

Thanks for trying the game out. I was getting a little bit discouraged (with no-one replying for so long).

I should be able to up the size of just the icons some time this weekend. I have been also working on making the game have better instruction text so that it is easier for a player to pick it up. (So hopefully that should make the game easier for new players to get into it.)

I've played against the AI and the first round it was a head to head run but in the second run the AI had not managed to sucessfully make any move. I don't know if it was a bug or very bad luck.

The AI is pretty bad at the game. Sometimes it stumbles upon a good move, but most of the time just trys to keep from blowing up. I might try to fix that, but right now UI changes seem to be more important (to scare off fewer players)

[sjm9876]

Playing the AI, after it's second turn in the first round no option was given to proceed. This was just before it should have been scored, but it wasn't.

[theTrueMikeBrown]

sjm9876: That seems like a bug. I will look into it and post my findings.

Edit: Good job - you found an interesting bug.

Apparently when a player opens up the dance off with a combo move it tries to combo off of the previous move (which doesn't exist). I caught that bug earlier and fixed it, but when a player then combos off of the aforementioned combo move, it tries to combo off of a combo move which is not comboing off of anything, and so the game gets confused.

I will update the website with a fix when I determine that I have fixed the bug.

Thanks for playing!

[theTrueMikeBrown]

Ok, A new version of the game is posted online. The icons are 50% bigger and the bug is fixed. Anyone interested in playing is still advised to read the rules first, but perhaps I will make a better intro the the game.

Also, I have been talking about providing artwork for this game with an artist. If that goes through I might be able to promise some actual dancing robot animations at some point in time.

If anyone plays it (or tries to) please post here. A lot of people have started a game and quit, so I am wondering if my interface drove them away, or what is happening.

[EagleV]

This looks pretty great. I think I might try this with some friends tomorrow, I'll let you know how it goes.

[EagleV]

Played it and it was fun! Great potential, and we're definitely backing this if it gets indiegogo'd.
Some things we thought could make the game better:
- Instead of randomly drawing dance moves, draft them. In case you never did that: each player gets his 5 cards, picks one, passes the rest to the left. Picks one of the 4 he gets, rest to the left. So on and so forth, until everyone has picked 5. That way, your dance moves will be of similar styles and much more useful (although it might make the game too easy, so it might require more balancing. Not sure. We didn't have time to try.
- I'd count improvising towards your 5 moves. I'm not sure, but I see some potential for game-ruiningly long runs in that direction.
- Discard all unused cards during preparation. This makes the game a bit harder, as it increases part sparseness, and it prevents everyone from getting +9 from the Grand Poobah every time. (Yes, that would mean you have to bribe GP with parts already on your robot, which is fun). We tried it that way, and we felt it played much smoother/cleaner as well.
- Nerf Al Gore. We had him as a judge in the last round, and basically everyone with an Armature chassis was first in points, then there was a 10-pt gap, and then came the rest. I'd suggest 1/heat. Which is also closer to what you can usually get from the other judges.
- Discard leftover dance moves. Necessary for drafting, and feels cleaner as well.

These are suggestions, obviously, and the game is pretty good as it is.

(For the record, 'we' is a subset of the Thunderbolts Ghent Game Club)

[theTrueMikeBrown]

EagleV,
Thanks for those awesome bits of advice. I just saw your reply, so these are first reactions as opposed to well thought out reactions
I like the drafting idea. I will see how it affects balance
There are sometimes game ruining improv chains. I am trying to make it impossible to dance every move with the same robot.  I have a few ideas to do that, but counting improv moves as prepared moves would help in that direction. I will look into it (perhaps it would be best to make a limit of ten moves total and 5 planned moves)
Discarding unused parts sounds fun. I will try it out.
You are right about al Gore. Whenever he comes up the guy with an armature wins. I will fix him.
Discarding left over dance moves seems reasonable as well. I will give it a shot.

Thanks so much for looking at my game. You made my day.

[EagleV]

You're welcome, we had a lot of fun with it. If you need anything else playtested, let us know - as long as it's as great as robot danceoffs
I've had some people express interest in trying next week, if I have enough time to go there, we might try some alternatives. I'll keep you updated.
Oh, and for anyone else interested in playing: the cards work great if you put them in sleeves with "real" cards.

[theTrueMikeBrown]

Sorry for not responding sooner.

I have fixed Al Gore already. I also made some changes to the Multi-Mover and the Tractor beam to make infinite comboing  impossible (more heat is all that was necessary).

I still intend to make a hard cap on the number of moves perform-able and to make various cards get discarded before the dance off, but I got distracted by artwork concerns. Here is an example of some artwork that my brother in law made for me:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I have also been working on animating some dancing robots with stolen artwork. Here is a link to what I have done so far. (Once I get my own artwork I will quit using this stolen stuff, but until then, my robot artwork came from here)

I will post again when I have more to say.