In-Class Playtest 4

Sam's group enjoying the game

In-Class Playtest #4 was held on November 16, 2023 in the E Building (Library) with members of Sam's group, and features Iteration 1.4 of the game.

Within the same playtest, each research pair within our development team has different preferences for recording their study and observations. The section in this page are divided by how each pair records their study.

Previous Playtest: Internal Playtest #3

Next Playtest: External Playtest #1

## Franciszek Ryt & Rajat Upadhayaya

### Objective

The class playtest was scheduled to showcase and test the new layout of the board, Heroes, test the new rules for the flags and fixed balance for special ability of Fia, and new initiative stats for all heroes.

* Rulebook V.4
* Almanac V.4

* Player 1 , Kler ,[Fire] Squirrel, Fox, Bunny, 14pts
* Player 2, Myra, [Lightning] Squirrel, Fox, Bunny, 6pts
* Player 3, Mirjam , [Earth] Fox, Dog, Panda, 35pts
* Player 4, Yum, [Wind] Crane, Bunny, Monkey, 13pts

### Process

Notes from the playtest (Rajat):

* The rule book says to jump to components a lot and then they had a bit of confusion on when to return to the setup part.
* “Every hero” in rulebook should be “Each one of their heroes”
* The word “Ally” is confusing I think.
* We need a better way to sort the major and minor flags in terms of the production. They were bunched together and not sorted.
* They were still confused about team picking.
* They are confused about the spawn points.
* We say “Blank” but a lot of the spaces on the new board are blank now, so we need to describe them better.
* They eventually got it right regarding the spawn points and respawn points.
* I think tiles need to be described a bit better.
* Some of the tile id cards had blank back sides.
* They got the minor decks count right.
* Need to clarify if the minor decks need to be split evenly.
* Team picking time, they read through the character sheets.
* Need to change wording to “up to” for movement in abilities.
* Make the winning condition more clear. Do you need to gain the most points to win the game?
* They picked teams. Players 1 and 2 chose the same team.
* They understood the Hero turn order within their team correctly.
* Player 3 went first. They captured a minor flag on their turn.
* Bunny says “Up to 4 damage”?
* They discarded the flags after the first round of capturing the flags.
* Moving out of the snowstorm is still negative three movements?
* Player 3 did not like being first because it meant less time to think.
* One player mentioned buffing the monkey during the game.
* Big Flaw? - Moving out of the snowstorm by just 1 meant Bunny could catch up to them.
* The learning curve is steep but afterwards it would be fun - Player feedback
* Player 4 used a wall on player 3 to push them into a snowstorm they casted just before.
* Killing your own hero gives you points?
* The monkey should have higher mobility - Player Feedback
* Player 4 mentioned the more bunnies on the board, the more stronger the monkey becomes.
* The inner thing confused them, they thought that you could no go to those inner white ring tiles until round 7.
* Player 2 has to depart so one of our devs would replace Player 2 and play for them.
* Player 3 said they felt like there was no benefit to going first, this player went first.
* Player 4 wanted player 3 to get some points since they were not in winning condition in the game.
* Players asked about teaming up and if they could block the map so others won’t get the points.
* Define center tile sector.
* Player 3 used their own soulbound character which was bound by someone else to kill a crane close to the center of the board, killing the fox and crane. This meant their dog in the center was not movable and had enough health to not die in 1 hit. Essentially winning the point.
* Issue is that central tiles were only affected by a few heroes.
* Icons for flags on tokens.
* Terrain belonging was confusing.

Notes from the playtest (Franciszek):

* The rule reading is all over the place, simplification in flipping through the rules.
* They are focusing on the tile flag generation more than about the Hero choices
* Mentioning the art being an important detail when choosing
* Regret being discussed right after the choices are revealed
* Forgetting that you can look for the next flag
* First time two players have chosen the same team
* First player anxiety - the worst position
* First player anxiety - no time to think, no reaction
* A little difficult to learn for the first playtest
* Fia is blocking the speedsters a tactic formed by the change of the rules
* Killing your own Heroes has come up as a tactic
* Fia is choses widely
* The terrains are tricky to put on the board and can be easily destroyed
* Helping gain point for the people who have little (strategy)
* Team up for more points - denying players from entering the side of the board
* Above board discussion
* Make the fia and regu things coloured

### Results

We have talked about making the rulebook less confusing by adding a quick guide of pictures of components with only the names, not explanations, so player can more easily grasp the naming shceme.

The Heroes felt balanced overall and we have talked about some minor changes to movement or health, but only as a personal tase rather than some guided changes. The game has worked well and we all have been very content with it state. We have ceased with the big changes and only discussed polishing it with the language (ally -> teammate) to avoid cofusion and unneccesery complications with rules. The game could be upgraded further but it would take an additional time to balance every new change and we have agreed on only polishing it for external playtest.

In this playtest we have also deduced that remade snowstorm should be possible to put on the ultimate flag as it does not freeze any player - they still can move/change/die. Without the snowstorm and the wall, the centre of the map was rather empty. We have reversed our decision and made it only illegal to put wall on the ultimate flag itself, rather than in a zone surrounding it.

### Research notes:

* People are more comfortable with making moves as a reaction rather than creating the action that they now will be reacted to by others,
* Monkey fia combination of creating the terrain to your advantage

Player 4 was all about crowd conrol. They have made their team around crafting terrain, obstructing range and limiting movement. On the other hand, the crane was used to reaching the far flags and seizing them.

Player 3 based their team on the idea of a fighter, healer and ranged hero combo. They wanted to keep their team alive with the dog and attack with the other two. Panda focused on taking players off the flags. They realy focused on the team being a real team and moved them around together, always backing each other up.

Player 1 chose the team based on their combat proficiency and regretted it immediately. They rrealised that the combat skills are not the best fit for the capture the flag game they were about to play. They wanted to make a lot of double kills with cobined strength of bunny and fox and a soul bidning from luces. They regtretted not having anything remotly close to crane or any ability moveing other heroes.

## Igor Sogorovecs & Stan Nguyen

### Previously, on Iteration 1.4...

Iteration 1.4 serves to address frustrating game systems identified from the previous In-Class playtest in the following manners:

* The Ultimate flag gains an addition 1-tile range of "no-AoE-placement" around it. This was done to limit heroes' ability to harass players going for the central objective, thus reduce clash and increase chance of survivals in the late game.

* Reworked all individual Initiatives of each heroes with better understanding of how each heroes can abuse a specific turn order. Specifically, heroes with movement manipulation in their kit have their Initiative set very high so they are less likely to go last.
* Fia's ability is reworked to prevent permanent freeze abuse, as well as reduce clutter.
* A total graphic overhaul for the game (board + tokens) to clean up visual clutters.
* Reducing 180 numbered tiles to only 60 tiles. This was done to reduce flag generation overhead.

### Aim

We wish to continue having the players pinpoint game systems, or lack thereof, which are inducive toward frustrations. The resulting game system can be completely new or a repeat of previously identified ones. We will also continue to monitor their behaviors, whether conscious or subconscious, as these behaviors carry psychological implications that survey response could not properly convey.

Another important aim for this specific playtest is player's enjoyance of the new graphic overhaul. While this is not relevant to our specific research, it is nevertheless a significant milestones for the game.

### Methodologies

The methodologies employed is a replication from previous playtest with no changes.

### "Negative Remarks" Results

#### Player 1

There was only 1 negative remark. This was:

"How much damage? Bullshit!"

#### Player 2

(This player left midway through) A total of 4 negative remarks were recorded. All of which being:

* "Yum gets no points haha"
* "The world doesn't care about your puny wall"
* Player 3: "I have no time to think on the first turn", Player 2: "you have time to think during our turns"
* "[Player 3] wanted to kill me, I think ... I am pretty sure."

#### Player 3

A total of 3 negative remarks were recorded. All of which being:

* "I hate going to start and I hate you go after me"
* "Yea? Well I don't care!"
* "I really appreciate how you mispronounced my name on purpose."

#### Player 4

A total of 9 negative remarks were recorded. Some of which being:

* "Should I attack [Player 1] for no reason?"
* "I am pretty happy cutting your party, so that you can't get on the points there"
* "You know what I'm gonna do? You are not gonna like it."

### Playtest Notes

#### Set-Ups

* Confusion abot how to set up tile lottery (stan notices this as them going back and forth on the components).
* Confusion about how to spawn tiles.
* Perhaps the board could use with pointing toward tile in addition to description to show which is which. (Bold, blank confuses people).
* Tile Lottery color was a bit off.
* Flag generation in details they want to hear very badly.
* We should consider clarifying if each deck of the Minor deck be equal. The players of this playtest assume it is equal.
* Many players didn't read through the rulebook much if at all.

#### Playtime

* They found out really quickly that you can only do one thing per hero.
* We have a production error on Crane's ability range.
* Almanac answers hero ability interaction really well.
* They miss round 0 completely, thinking that Start is just Start.
* We have a production error on the tracker: "at the end of the round" instead of "at the beginning" (correct).
* "I don't like to go First because I have no time to think like the rest of all of you."
* There were requests to buff the monkey.
* "A bit of climb to learn the game to get into it."
* P4 played the monkey ability with a movement component.
* "What happen if you kill your own allies?"
* "Let the monkey climb its own wall."
* Suiciding to gain points near the end of the game is a valid tactic.
* It doesn't say anything in the rulebook about moving through inner ultimate zone until Round 6. They assume the area is off-limit until Round 6.
* Registering points with takedown tokens can be a bit confusing.
* It's bad for Violea to go first.
* Change AoE to linger until the end of a round only. Until end of a turn is abusive.
* Keeping track of Snowstorm is difficult for different players.
* Rules about communication between players are not mentioned.
* Consideration of a tint on AoE tokens to differentiate between teams.
* Players were frustrated on what Heaven the ultimate flag is considered. When learning they can't bind anyone standing on the Ultimate Flag they weren't happy.
* They mention liking the odd number of rounds to give heroes a chance to respawn.
* The middle point favors First-turn player. If certain players have first access to the middle then the AoE restriction cripples over half of the roster.
* Beside K.Os, there are no other ways to remove characters out of the Ultimate flag.
* Change flag token to icon instead of number icons because they were confused that as the number on the board.
* Keeping track of wall tokens.

### Interview Q&A

There are no responses recorded for Player 2 because they left midway through the playtest.

*What did you enjoy the most in the game?*

* Player 1: "I enjoyed a bunch of ways that a round can go and that the predictability can shift."
* Player 3: "I really appreciate that it has big replay values. So like I would love to just play it again with different teams."
* Player 4: "Moving other players."

*One word feeling?*

* Player 1: "Strategy"
* Player 3: "Frustrated."
* Player 4: "Monkey."

*What did you feel most frustrating in the game? If no then what do you think would give other players frustration?*

* Player 1: "Not being able to remove the central players."
* Player 3: "The other players."
* Player 4: "Flag in the center: basically what happened now is if anyone decide to team up they can deny a lot of players from pulling out of the center."

*If you can design this game, how would you make it fairer?*

* Player 1: "Have more ways to remove the player in the center. It felt kind of unbalanced that you always go first or last. I wasn't sure what's up with that. I would consider changing turn order every round. How would you balance it with Ini value? But yes."
* Player 3: "The only problem I have with fairness was the whole thing that I started first and that was a problem in the early game. But that may also be me being bad at planning what other people do. To make it fairer, I would consider changing turn order."
* Player 4: "Choose a character to go around, a Draft Pick system."

*How much time did you feel like you were playing?*

* Player 1: "40 mins of playing."
* Player 3: "We started at like 2 so like two and a half hour for both."
* Player 4: "Two and a half hours (playtime)."

*Did you feel like you really hate what your opponent was doing?*

* Player 1: "No."
* Player 3: "No."
* Player 4: "No."

*What was your strategy?*

* Player 1: "My strategy was so when I picked my team, I was thinking that I was super smart because if you have the fox and bunny target one hero, it would get one shot. I wanted to be able to one shot, and squirrel to double shot as as needed. And then I looked a bit and they both were either super squishy or super short range. Bunny to be able to have an AoE and affect people at once. Then before we even started playing, I remember the point is not to kill people but to collect points, and you get the most points by capturing flags. It's actually a good idea to manipulate movements and move people. I regret my choice. Some heroes have more health than what I looked at the baseline. I didn't take into account the fact that if my hero get taken down then my one shot masterplan is going to shit."
* Player 3: "So in the beginning, when I picked my character. I just wanted to understand the game so I picked character based on: I want a heavy attacker, I want a range, and I want a healer. Once in the game, I didn't have much of a strategy in the fight because I didn't know well. Toward the end, I wanted to keep my dog alive and try to be close to other people as well as enemy player to so that I can easily heal up my character while sustaining on the same spot."
* Player 4: "Had the effects of impacting other hero's movements. And building my team around the monkey (whom I loved)."

*Did you feel like giving up at any point?*

* Player 1: "The very last round I was like I can't do anything."
* Player 3: "No."
* Player 4: "No."

### Discussion

Based on the results of the "Negative Remarks" and our Interviews, we discovered that:

* The Ultimate Zone denying AoE was intended to protect players when capturing flags. However, it turned out to be an anti-progressing system for players that wish to actively compete for it. Only two heroes can deal damage without AoE in our current roster.
* First-turn order continued to be a point of frustration for the player, while last-turn order is highly sought after, although this time the issue is less with certain heroes abusing movements, but due to First-turn requiring more thinking aheads.

Iteration 1.5 will serve to address these design issues informed by our playtest - to alleviate frustrations in players.

## Emma Andersson & Sanna Helsing

*In this iteration, new rules were introduced. A new hero was added, the squirrel Luces. Card design was changed to better convey the visual hierarchy of relevant information, to discourage and encourage what players focus on. The new cards feature new character art featuring anthropomorphic animals. Data was gathered through taking notes from playtest observation. At the end of the game, players were interviewed using the survey questions.*

Players

* Player 1 (Red): Bunny, Squirrel, Fox - 14 points total, 5 from kills.
* Player 2 (Purple): Bunny, Squirrel, Fox - 7 points total, 5 from kills.
* Player 3 (Green): Panda, Dog, Fox - 35 points total, 2 from kills. (Winner)
* Player 4 (Yellow): Bunny, Crane, Monkey - 13 points total, 2 from kills.

#### Notes

Player 3 is the first one to go, dislikes that they are first in turn-order, thinks it’s easier to strategize and think if you’re not first.

Player 4 REALLY likes the monkey, “buff monkey plz”. Enjoys bullying, especially Player 3 in the beginning, by using monkey wall and bunny storm.

Players make good use of snowstorms and earth walls. Good synergy between the wall and storm. Noticed that there needs to be a better way to keep track of walls and storms, maybe only give out 1 per player with the appropriate hero instead of having a pile lying around. Discard unused storms and walls.

Player 1 thinks the center tile is bad, other players agree. Since it doesn’t belong to a heaven, and because many abilities can’t be used on it, means that the dog could just stand there without contest and win. This leads to a discussion about draft picking, so you could counter-pick other players' characters to potentially stop this from happening? Imo this is something you’d just have to learn as you play.

#### Interview Q&A

##### First interview, interviewing player 4.

Player 4 said they picked “Monkey, crane and bunny”.

When asked why they picked these characters we learned:

* Monkey: Chosen for its visuals, but also liked its mechanics. Built their team around this character. Its ability was thought to be strong; it could wall off enemies while protecting allies. Strong utility.
* Crane: Chosen for its mechanics. Chosen because they thought it would work well with monkey. Can move people, high mobility.
* Bunny: Chosen for its mechanics. Chosen because they thought it would work well with monkey. It can create snowstorms that will synergize well with the monkey’s wall.

When asked what was more appealing about their characters, visuals or mechanics, they answered:

* Monkey: Visuals for sure, “because he looked playful”
* Crane: Mechanics
* Bunny: Mechanics

When asked if the characters visual design represent its mechanics well, as well as if the characters felt like they had a certain personality they said:

Yes.

* Monkey looks playful and lively. Like he would “mess with people”. They however wished that the monkey's mechanics more represented its visuals, it should be more mobile because monkey.
* Crane looks very fast, like it has a lot of mobility. It also looks very deceitful (trickery was the word used).
* Bunny looks like they are very elegant.

The mechanics + visuals represent most characters very well.

When asked about immersion and relatability to the characters they said:

Yes, they could immerse and relate themselves to the characters, but only once they had understood the rules clearly. Understanding the rules makes it easier to immerse in the characters.

When asked what they thought about the anthropomorphic designs they said:

“I like stylized animals more than people”. They said it’s easier to relate and immerse in stylized animals than with humans. You can do more fun designs with animals.

When asked what could be changed about the character designs they said:

“The characters should be more animal-like to avoid being seen as furry”. They thought the monkey was a perfect blend of stylized animal, and that when they looked at the bunny they thought “furry”.

When asked if they would play the game solely based on the characters visual design they said:

Yes. “I would play it just because of the visual design of the characters. If I saw the visual design first I’d want to try the game out”.

##### Second interview, with player 1 and 4.

Player 1 (and 4 later) had some general feedback: Summarize the rules better, make them shorter. Use bullet points etc to shorten. Some characters have less explanations than others.

Player 1 said they picked “Bunny, fox, squirrel”

When asked why they picked these characters they said:

“For their mechanics”

When asked what they thought of the characters visuals they said:

“They were awesome”. Player 1 seemed to love the visuals, but it had no influence in their decision making when choosing characters.

When asked about the squirrel’s unfinished visual design, and if that impacted their decision making when choosing characters, they said:

“No, it didn’t matter because the mechanics were more important to me”.

When asked if they found the characters relatable and if they could immerse themselves in the characters they said:

“Yes, the characters had a lot of personality, both visually and mechanically.” They said the visual design was very good, and reflected well with the characters’ mechanics.

When asked if there was anything they would change about the character design they said:

“Nothing is missing, but the characters doesn’t feel like they have any real connection to their matching Heaven.” They used Snow Bunny as an example, that the Snow Bunny doesn’t mechanically have any connection to the Snow Heaven, and if there was some way to implement that.

When asked what they thought of the anthropomorphic designs (stylized animals) they said:

“Great, I love stylized animal designs. They are more relatable and easier to put yourself into than a human character.” They said humans were harder to relate to because you can’t really see yourself in them, they are too much like their own person, while stylized animals are easier to relate to because they are very different while also retaining some humanoid features. They said that stylized animals are just more fun because you can do so much more with that, and they are a lot easier to read with a lot more personality compared to a human character, a human character would have a more subtle visual personality cues. They also explained that you’d feel less bad about a stylized animal fighting than an actual animal design.

When asked if they would play the game solely based on the characters visuals they said:

“Yes, if I just saw the characters I’d want to try out playing the game because they are so colorful with a beautiful consistent artstyle and a lot of worldbuilding.”

I also asked if they had a favorite visual design and they said:

“I don’t know if I have just one favorite, but I really liked the Bunny with its graceful visuals complementing the snowstorm mechanic. I also thought the Panda and Crane were very cool.”

When asked if they’d prefer anthro or human characters they said:

“Stylized animals are better. You can get so much more personality in their design than from a human. They are just more relatable than people and easier to project oneself onto.”

When asked if they had more to add they said:

The movement visual on the ability part of the card (lowest part of the card) was good for some characters but confusing on others. They gave the crane and bunny as an example, that visually they are leaping between tiles and not hopping, but got told they can’t leap when they tried that while playing, so the visual should be that both of them hop and not that one can leap. Overall both the visuals and mechanics were good for the characters.