A Big Shift for Abby

As I noted earlier this week, I've been trying some different and strange stuff with Poor Abby Farnsworth to make the game more fun, more streamlined, and more unique.

A good friend called me to discuss the game on Wednesday night. He played the prototype on Sunday that included my new custom dice idea and liked the game, but had some reservations. We talked for about an hour and at the end I had a few ideas that were fairly big departures from what I'd been doing currently:

• No more dice, regular, custom, or otherwise. The dice weren't enough of a differentiating factor for the overall feel of the game and though they were working, they weren't really satisfying my core need. Removing dice also greatly reduces component costs.
• No more score tracker. Score trackers are inherently fiddly. Now, score will be tallied with scored cards (like Farmageddon) and a few other easy elements. 
• Jurors are the core of the experience. I added 3 more jurors for a grand total of six. But that's not all.
• You must control a Juror to obtain Evidence cards. This creates a back and forth between players.
• As a result, all evidence is now dynamically priced (somewhat) based on how much people want it and are willing to fight for it. If tuned and implemented properly, I think this will be a real innovation. 
• Jurors have Jury Tampering abilities. Based on how the Juror cards are dealt each game, they can influence and modify adjacent jurors in a few ways. 
• Court Actions were simplified. Now only the Judge and Witch have actions which are driven by Influence. 

I think this is a big step forward for the game. I plan to test it tomorrow afternoon.

Here are the rules with dice. Read these if you want a comparison.

Here are the new rules with dice removed. These are the current rules I'm testing.

As always, your thoughts are appreciated.

Quick Notes on Poor Abby

I'm really enjoying the development of Poor Abby Farnsworth. I feel that I'm coming up with far more good ideas than bad ones and my playtesters have been enthusiastic about the game. I keep finding good, solid ways to improve the game and it's overall been really enjoyable.

Things don't always go that way so I'm just really enjoying it. Frontier Scoundrels and Space Encounters were both huge struggles with no end in sight, so it's nice to see some positive rays. Dice, deckbuilding, witches...what's not to love (at some point)?

After my fourth test I think the game clearly works at a functional level. We played an entire game, the pacing was right, there were cool choices, a little strategy, it was fun. But it's not fun enough and it's not different enough. Remember that there are several outstanding games with deckbuilding: Dominion, Eminent Domain, Ascension, Quarriors, plus games like A Few Acres of Snow and the upcoming Princes of the Dragon Throne include DBG engines. Now that the structure and foundation of Poor Abby are strong, I'm going into fine tuning and skunk works mode. I'm just going to start trying crazy stuff to make the game incredibly unique and streamlined.

Here are some of the things I have or will be testing shortly:

• Iconography and Layout. One of the problems of any deckbuilder is that a player must learn many cards on their first experience. This isn't fun and I'm trying to test and improve my layout and iconography to lessen the burden of the first play experience. I'm still using index cards and pencil scratches but even there it's possible to refine these things, which saves me time/money when I begin printing real prototypes.
• Cutting Cards. After four plays and lots of design time I can already see the weaker cards. I removed 12 cards from the deck this morning and have about 5 or 6 more I think I can easily extricate. I don't want any fat or filler cards. I want everything to create interesting choices and if I can already see the card as boring, my players will too.
• Custom Dice. I've been trying to lean more into the dice element of the game in good ways. I don't want the game to have some dice and also have some cards. Previously, there would be 3 Jurors in the game that, when controlled, would convey an ability. This meant you had to read more cards! Now, you trade in your regular d6 (which means you lose some flexibility) for a custom die based on the controlled Juror (which means you gain some abilities). After one test this made the game simpler and more fun!
• I'll need to play around with this to ensure it's necessary. Custom dice are great, but they increase the cost of the game to develop.
• Lawyer Abilities. A tester/good friend/published designer suggested I add Lawyer abilities. Basically, the prosecution player has an ability and the defense player has an ability. This will hopefully add a layer of strategy to the game, provide some asymmetrical gameplay and depth, and a little replayability. 
• Court Events. I want to make the Witch Abby and Judge stronger characters for thematic and gameplay purposes. What if the witch lit somebody on fire in the middle of the trial? Or if the judge made some sort of sweeping declaration? I think I'm going to design some cards that emerge from the draw deck. They will create an opportunity to exploit that is available to both players. I'll have to see if I can make this work.

I'm not going to post an updated version of the rules just now (they might change in 20 minutes and I'm being a tinge lazy at this second), but I will soon. They read really cleanly and are now only 6 pages long (and that includes visual diagrams). 

I'm going to being the photoshop work for a better prototype layout this weekend. Hopefully that means in a few weeks I can send some folks early versions to test and help me improve. 

And a two and a three (Poor Abby)

I've been hustling (and taking advantage of my hour long shuttle ride every day) to test and update Poor Abby Farnsworth. I was able to work in a second and third playtest this week. These tests incorporated the feedback from the first test.

Before I discuss the tests and the changes, you can read the updated rules for Poor Abby Farnsworth here. Feedback is appreciated! 


“Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery 


This quote has been a guiding phrase for Poor Abby's development. I find that every playtest I streamline or remove a feature and it is improving the game every time. I noted offhand this morning that if my rules are longer after I incorporate my feedback I did it incorrectly, but it's somewhat accurate.  

After the third test, I feel we have some fairly refined core mechanics. Not refined as in "I'm shipping this soon," but refined as in I think we'll be digging more into the content (cards, balance, strategy, tuning) which will inform the decisions I make on the game's structure.

I feel the fundamental focus of the design are shining through: a new way of doing things (not revolutionary, but evolutionary). A faster deckbuilding game. More player interaction. More traditional board game entities to wrestle over. I'm excited and I hope I can push the game further from its contemporaries (Ascension, Dominion, Alien Frontiers) and more towards its own beast that players are excited by.

Poor Abby Testworth: Results of the first Test

I took the opportunity to test Poor Abby Farnsworth this past week. We didn't play a full game due to time and some issues with the game, but the test went remarkably well and I've finished implementing the changes that came about as a result of the test.

Below I'm going to detail the results of the test as well as the changes you'll see in the game. The foundation to the game didn't receive any drastic changes, though one significant support feature was removed and I tweaked an existing feature in a pretty significant fashion. However, most of the changes were polish and tuning fixes.

Here are the updated rules for Poor Abby Farnsworth. As always, your feedback is very much appreciated. I'm fairly pleased the rules are a tinge shorter now, even though the game is deeper.

Space Admiral Fleet Command 101

I don't play too many digital games these days because I constantly get the feeling of deja vu. I'm almost 30 and I guess I feel I've played it all. Thankfully, every now and then a game emerges that offers something completely fresh, yet familiar enough to make me all warm inside.

A game I've loved for a few years now is Neptune's Pride, developed by Iron Helmet. Iron Helmet has a focus on web-based strategy games, many of which are free to play and play out slowly over the course of days and even weeks. They also have a board game feel, which should come as no surprise to you is something I love.

I'm going to try to do two things in this post: get your frothing to try Neptune's Pride, but also, give you some tips on how to emerge victorious. It's a nasty universe, mostly because Admirals like me are in it.