The Xmas Period - Board Game

Because of Xmas, my family also wanted me to have a board game created for us to play. It got me thinking about the Drop a Log game idea and I thought I could use my family as play testers while I develop on the very simple gameplay concept.

Starting with the rough concept I had from phase 3, I created a basic play board and used some simple rules that allowed players to move, cut down and plant trees. With the target to drop logs off into the river to score points, victory at 10 points. [Sketchbook 1 Page 24-27]

What was very obvious to begin with was how tricky the hex board is to navigate in terms of the grid references for planting the trees. This taught me that even when playtesting, I need to focus the test on what is important. If something is getting in the way of that, fix it or remove it.

Some of the key mechanics which were rules from the beginning soon were caught out as issues. Planting a tree after every turn soon makes the planting trees irrelevant as so many are spawned on the board. So only planting trees after one was felled made for a more balanced system. What I also liked about this was the connection to the rule that 'No tree can be planted on a cell with an object already in it.' What this does is, over a period of time, it has a chance to reduce the trees on the board even though trees are attempted to be planted per tree felled. This outcome encourages a mechanic that allows players to plant extra trees. I wanted to include elements of positive conservation and tree planting to actually be a way to increase chances of winning.

I also managed to find a way to start the game which felt balanced. Between the players, they roll the dice to plant 3 trees randomly, choosing the starting location along the bottom row. This was better than choosing to where to plant the first 3 and rolling for the start position as players will almost always be planting trees at random, so starting with this shouldn't give false information for what the rest of the game is. While players always have choice over their positioning and movement on the board.

The basics of the game were coming together and worked fluidly, however, the players were never actually playing with each other. Felling trees, planting them and dropping them, players actually only interacted with themselves, on their side of the river. So the next step was to introduce features that allowed the players to "Attack" their opposition. [Sketchbook 1 Page 27]

Something else that I have learned when designing and playtesting a board game, recording my findings and the rapid iterations of micro mechanic changes is difficult to keep on top of. Taking photos seems like the easiest way of quickly capturing the scenario and allows me to see the stage of development, but without recording what I've found out, what works and what doesn't, I leave myself open to slow the pace of design.

Some of the major changes I believe are greatly improving the gameplay is the use of the Planting and Attacking cards, the different value trees which can be felled and planted using a seperate dice, the movement dice which is based on a D6 but currently has (1,2,2,2,3,4). Originally grouping all the cards together, it worked out better to separate them into their own piles. Allowing players to purchase cards more tactically, thus, feeling like their choice to purchase a card is spent with more purpose and more impactful.

Besides the smaller, detailed decisions I was making on the fly between playtests such as the movement rules when dropping a log and how a player can purchase a card, I've found that although the added cards are required at some point, the players aren't utilising the cards and their potential. This could be because of two reasons; the players are on their seperate sides of the river, hence subconsciously making them feel like they're playing separately, or that the cards just don't feel that weighted against the cost, thus it isn't worth spending a turn out of bounds to purchase a card.

The core lesson I've learned from roughly two weeks of prototyping with friends and family, is that I can leave much of the design work up to the players themselves. It might feel like I'm cheating a little, but because I'm invested in all of the iterations, I'll have a bias opinion on much of what is and isn't fun about the game. And it is worth saying, "Okay, let's play it that way next time" allows for better engagement with my playtesters and faster iterating. This then allows me to observe and recognise the faults in the game to take away and figure out alone. I also realise how much I thoroughly enjoy this process, watching people playing with crappy prototype pieces and still playfully banter is why I want to make playful systems.