My current lead design project, Frontier Scoundrels, has traversed some difficult terrain lately. I finally played the game from start to finish, which was excellent, but also showed me just how far I needed to go.
The feedback from the test was as follows:
- Explorers didn't have enough interesting choices. They were basically pawns while the Expedition Leader and War Party battled it out. They had little incentives for either outcome, as well.
- Event cards (now Action cards) played almost no role in the game. They were too hard to obtain and didn't matter much.
- Resolving Hardships was too easy.
- The Land mechanic was interesting on paper, but nobody really liked it as executed. During the test, each Explorer selected 1 Land card (from a hand of 3) and gave it to the Expedition Leader face-down.
I tried to solve these problems in a few ways.
- I made it so that Explorers played a Land card in clockwise order. Instead of the Expedition Leader choosing the order, the Explorer picked it. This actually simplified the game, sped it up, and made the Explorers' choices more interesting.
- I modified the Land to benefit the Explorers more and the Expedition Leader less. This made it so that Explorer's could play cards that leaned in their favor.
- I made it so Explorers earned points as well as the Expedition Leader (though fewer), but also would gain more dice to use throughout the game.
- I gave players more Action cards at the start of the game and added several ways to get them (primarily tied them into Land to once again make the Explorer's choice more interesting).
- I made Hardships more difficult by increasing/decreasing the numbers and putting more restrictions on how the dice could be used. I also cleaned up the mechanics here to be more consistent. Just a better change overall.
