Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Of Feast & Famine

The game that I used to call Cheshire's Kingdom is now called Of Feast & Famine.  I suppose that makes it a "sequel" to Of Power & Glory.  I've actually been thinking about a third one in the line called "Of Intrigue & Inheiritance", but I'll save that for another blog.

I got my first copy of OF&F in yesterday and playtested it with my wife.  I'm actually a bit surprised how well it did by the time I was done tweaking stuff.  Don't get me wrong, there's a lot left to do, but the game was fairly playable.

So here are the things I changed or clarified from my first playtesting (all of this is subject to further change):
  • The peg pawns that I thought would stack... don't.  So I'll just have to use cubes.  It will cost $1.00 more, but I'm not as concerned about that as I am the more clumsy feel of the game.  Actually it wasn't too bad with cubes, but I was really hoping for parts that stacked more naturally.
  • In a one player game, you use 3 pawns.  In a two player game, each player uses 2 pawns.
  • I need
  • The game starts with 5 workers in the castle and 5 rations.
  • You now seed the game with 5 disasters by rolling dice at the start of the game.
  • It costs 5 rations to create another worker.
  • A feast costs you 1 ration an 1 worker must go to the castle.
  • Plague cause workers to go to the calendar 1 season ahead.  The basis for choosing how many people get sick is half of the Well workers (rounding down).
  • If you have a feast when the rations are at 0, a worker dies...  and another 1 must go to the castle.
  • the "castle" disaster is now called "feast".
  • You no longer repair all buildings from the workshop...  the workshop is just for the long term projects.  To repair a building you must go to that building and repair it explicitly. I'm still a little up in the air as to whether 1 action repairs all damage to a building or just one cube....  I'm leaning towards one cube.
  • I'm on the fence about whether or not to limit the number of times an action can be performed.  I think I need to do that, but I didn't play that way yesterday and it was ok.
Other observations:
  • The enemies were way too easy...  I spent my time dealing with the other problems and then realized, "I could just attack my enemies and win"  I'll have to make them a much bigger concern.  Perhaps be moving their numbers closer to 7.  Perhaps by seeding their hostilities (this might be a difficulty adjustment as well).
  • I need to change the role cards to indicate the color of the pawn that is used.
  • The board looks great!

That's all for now!

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