Wow, it’s been a while since I actually did this playtest but I guess I’ll go ahead and post it. So, I decided to give non-computer game design a try.

The game ended up playing a lot differently than I expected. I think the largest shock was how far off my estimates of playtime were. We ended up playing through the first third of the game twice(because the last 2/3’s weren’t finished yet) and each game ended up taking 45min to an hour which is just under what I would like the total playtime for the game to be. It was also nice to get constructive feedback early on.

Here’s another picture:

What I would do differently:

I would schedule another playtest about a week after the first one. Just from playing games I know that they play differently after you play them a few times and differently again later on when you master them. Also, from writing computer games I know it can be a humbling experience when after you’ve playtested your game to death and maybe had some friends play it, that some complete stranger just doesn’t get it because you aren’t there to hold their hand while they learn.  I’d like to see a playtest where I’m not involved in playing the game at all. It’s still in the early stages where every turn I want to tweak the gameplay in one way or another after every move and this came up quite a bit in the initial test.

I still have plenty of prototyping supplies sitting around and I do intend to finish it one day but who knows when that will be.