Spielbany August 2007

Yesterday I attended Spielbany, which I haven't been able to go since last year. I played a set collection game, an educational game about constructing mathematical proofs, and a modified roll-and-move game about kids bullying their way to the best seats on the school bus.

I was able to get a test in of Television Executive and Conglomerate. I had actually forgotten to bring the board for Conglomerate because I keep it in my closet. However, Tom, who was hosting the event, was kind enough to let me use his printer. Luckily I had uploaded a picture of the board and with a little work was able to recreate the board.

Here are the notes I took during the playtest for Television Executive:

Television Executive Playtest
version 4

8/11/2007
3:06pm
Zev - 25, Jeb - 29, Kris - 32, Rich - 21
Kris - 6, Jeb - 5, Zev - 3, Rich - 0

Change flip over rules for round 2

Rich - 60, Zev - 34, Jeb - 29, Kris - 35
Rich - 6, Kris - 11, Zev - 6, Jeb - 5

Jeb - 52, Zev - 48, Kris - 60, Rich - 43
Kris - 17, Jeb - 10, Zev - 9, Rich - 6

Jeb - 45, Zev - 60, Kris - 46, Rich - 33
Zev - 15, Kris - 22, Jeb - 13, Rich - 6

Jeb 5 0 5 3 13
Kris 6 5 6 5 22
Rich 0 6 0 0 6
Zev 3 3 3 6 15

Kris: strategy - draft rare types, likes the dual-collecting strategies
Jeb: differentiate card types, difft, penalties for missing card types, more hidden information
Zev: showbiz shuffle/hollywood (fantasy flight) might have same mechanincs?, cut down cards to 120 including bid cards, maybe 110 cards, change bid cards, nemesis icons
Rich: private player bonuses, category bonuses, don’t

The flip over note above was because in the middle of round one of four I realized the rules for revealing new cards were too restrictive. For the next three rounds we used a new rule and the game improved remarkably.

Here are the notes I took for the Conglomerate playtest:

Conglomerate Playtest
version 4?

Steve, Rich, Tom, Michael

8:00pm
players seem to be playing more slowly than expected
two consumes

9:26

Rich: reduce first year’s buildings, redistribute buildings
second item for farms?
want to encourage monopolization
make a facility pay to activate
find way to drain money out
time dragged at points
bid on capital building
non-player buyers and sellers?
trigger consume by filling in boxes
introduce new commodity types as time goes on

Tom: liked corn-oil tradeoff
liked market mechanic
disliked gaps in action
liked inflationary
increase building costs as years go by
pay tax on cash on hand?
likes number of different things, adding too much may be too complex
make 2 open column’s to build each time
liked seasons
something that covers two for year two instead of airport

Steve: less oil on houses
houses pointless to put beef in winter
pastures too little to do
give beef to vehicles
tax to buy own stuff?
change balance of AFV versus SUVs over time, forced choice

Both sessions were very helpful and I know exactly what changes I want to make for the next version of each game.