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Flower War Playtest Report

Tug Brice - Cincinnati Game Designers Playtest Night - 11/30/2022

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Takeaway

  • The numbers in the game are mostly good.
    • This is a good starting place for advanced mechanics like terrain and characters.
  • Some game mechanics were ignored but most were used.
    • Advanced mechanics should give more incentive to use those features.
  • The endgame results in a stalemate.
    • Advanced features should solve this problem by changing the balance of the game.

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Goals

  • Test the numbers:
    • Is the game competitive?
    • Is the game too challenging?
    • Is the game too easy?
  • Test the mechanics:
    • What mechanics are used/ignored?
  • Test the end-game:
    • Is the endgame going to result in a stalemate?

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Obstacles

  • Materials:
    • Not production-ready.
    • Very rough UX for this version.
  • Rules
    • Players will not be familiar with the rules.
    • Don’t have pre-printed rules sheets.

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Procedures

  1. Set up board/get materials ready to play
    1. Hand-wrote rules cards/references.
    2. Set up board.
    3. Loaded spreadsheet/RNG necessary for cards
  2. Recruited players/explained rules
    • Players were other game designers who had come to test their games.
    • Two other people participated in the test.
  3. Played game.
    • I participated in the test to help things run smoother.
    • Game ran until endgame stalemate.
  4. Solicited feedback.

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Results

  • Numbers good
    • Game stayed very competitive.
    • There was some resource hoarding, but not enough to constitute a problem.
    • Hoarding was caused by the endgame stalemate issue, and can be addressed in several ways.
    • Faith penalties can probably be raised slightly to keep make the game feel more apocalyptic.

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Results (Cont.)

  • Mechanics mostly used.
    • Movement mechanics were used in the late game but not the early game.
    • No resource pressure early meant players saw no need to move, but late game scarcity caused players to use the mechanic.
    • Combat/Trade ignored.
      • Combat wasn’t well explained and didn’t have a lot of incentive to use.
    • Apocalypse mechanics probably didn’t get enforced.
      • Caused by bad UX and excessive bookkeeping needs

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Results (Cont.)

  • Endgame Stalemate happened
    • First-past-the-Post caused endgame stalemate.
    • No one could get the resources to move the figure two steps at once.
    • This resulted in the stalemate.
    • Characters should solve this by changing costs and resource gain.
    • Characters should also give incentive to move one figure vs. the other.