Finally it’s time for the playtest. My main goal for test was to find out:
- how many cards are players allowed to have at hand. The default number was 2, potential number was 3. Definitely not more, because there are only 14 playable cards or even 10 excluding bonus ones
- If the “believe me or not” mechanism works. If it works, does it allow to exchange cards (especially exclusive)
- how many exclusive cards are compulsory to have in order to complete the path and win the round. Ideally it would be all 3 so that players are encouraged to use the main exchanging mechanics and beat the challenge. If that turns out to be stagnating the game, the number will be reduced and more neutral cards introduced instead
But firstly, as I was adviced, the rules needed testing too. After a bit of corrections and adjusting I tested the rules with people of my generation, with knowledge of English (natives and non natives), and older generation of non-speakers (I translated it for them). All the feedback was positive with the rules being clear. The only bit of difficulty was remembering the tricking mechanism and events that happen in each of the 4 cases, but as the playtest showed later, keeping the describtions helps a lot and by 4-5th run most of it was easy to learn apply without the guide.
Issue 1:
I found this issue even without playtest, which is no describtion of when and how to use bonus cards. I didn’t fix it before the playtest, but this was resolved in the process. Bonus cards are acquired within the trading mechanism and their effect comes immediately.
Issue 2:
How to decide, who goes first, scorpion or grasshopper. Actually, any method will work, like coin toss or rock-paper-scissors. Just need to mention this in the rules as well
Issue 3:
Exchanging mechanism worked almost perfectly but for 1 thing – neutral cards must not be allowed there. Because there was a moment, when rules confront logic, when technically the player could finish the round with neutral card, but the rules didn’t allow it. The case was solved with excluding neutral cards from exchanging process. After that the mechanism worked perfectly.
The amount of cards:
As the game proceeded, I saw that the flow with 2 cards at hand was the best option and didn’t need any interventions. One bonus card occasionally allows 3 cards at hand for one player during one round. It’s more than enough to give a boost, but not to speed up the game too much.
As for the number of exclusive cards in the path. I was afraid that it would be too hard to obtain all 3 cards and was ready to reduce the amount to just one. But playtest showed that it wasn’t needed and the level of challenge is enough to keep the game entertaining. Playtesters even mentioned it in their feedback. So I don’t see the point of changing anything here if it works just fine.
Conclusions:
The playtest went far better than I expected. Thust the main exchanging mechanics seemed a bit too complicated to catch, it worked well enough with just minor alterations. The game flow is smooth and entertaining enough and my initial predictions about the amount of cards was proved effective. All I have left to do is to apply the changes to the rule set and the progect can be considered as working and complete.