More Playtesting

After finally finding some spare time (over the weekend) I made the necessary amendments to Citywise. And even managed two solo run throughs of the game with the new rules.

I find that playtesting solo has a number of benefits and drawbacks. The most obvious benefits are that you can make slight amendments as you go and you don’t have the awful feeling of showing all your hard work to someone else to be judged on! The drawbacks are obvious as well, there is no intrigue as you have a good idea of what your opponent is going to do, you don’t have any objective feedback either.

It’s a problem being so close to the game. You can’t detach yourself sufficiently to take a fully objective view of the game on it’s own terms.

Anyway, I found the playtests to be a mixed bag. I’d constructed a ‘task’ deck so that players could choose tasks instead of having to root through the block decks, this worked really well as the characters could get straight into earning money. This seemed to give a much leaner game. However I felt that it did take a little away from the mystery of the game, but overall was a major improvement. The noticeable drawback during the games was a lack of enforced player interaction. It felt a little like the two characters were both playing solitaire. I think the way to remedy this is to include a few tasks that involve other players (e.g. Conduct a mugging to claim 100 creds). I’ve got a few ideas on this so I’ll give them a try at some point.

I also want the game to have more distinct phases. The first phase will ideally have players completing minor tasks and gaining a small amount of money to buy weapons etc, the second phase can then be the players running round robbing banks and the third phase can be people trying to avoid getting mugged by each other. Perhaps…

It’s not all been Citywise this week though. I’ve been throwing down some ideas for other games:

Steam Car Racers: This has been put on a back burner for the forseable future.

BMX game: A card based game where players compete to perform the best tricks. It’s still in the planning stage, no prototype as yet.


Space campaign game: Hmm, what to say. This is a real personal project, perhaps to be run with a few friends in the not so near future. I intend to make the most complex and slow burning Sci-Fi campaign game ever. Cue multiple boards, simultaneous moves, lots of book –keeping, etc… Should be fun!

Anyway, thats all for now, see you again next week.