Keep It Simple

Here we have the total overhaul and redesign, which I might add, also resulted in a second round of carpal tunnel syndrome.

One significant issue brought to light by one of the original play-testers, Anthony Capone, was the lack of any order or logic to who can buy what, and when. The initial version of the game had a massive flaw that allowed people to exploit the investments made by others, and leapfrog over them into the primary position of power - Governorship. It broke the integrity of the game so bad, you’d likely not want to play again...

This problem was addressed first, by redesigning the boards entirely. The original design was born out of hand sketches I’d done before any testing had taken place. They were simple and basically random concepts I invented, based on no data or evidence. After the first couple test-sessions I had plenty of data to begin brainstorming new board designs. And so I did.

Frenemies is about maximizing your sphere of influence, and Anthony’s observation highlighted the importance of having some logic, order, and hierarchy to the expansion process for different players, not to mention solving the aforementioned exploit. The redesign pictured here accomplished that end by restricting player' options a particular asset hierarchy that will be discussed in future posts. We also implemented a universal hierarchy that restricted the development of higher assets until all lower ones were first complete.

These simple changes brought a massive upgrade to the overall game play. They had an additional, rather serendipitous benefit, of cancelling out large portions of the rules I had written. We went from 14+ pages of documentation, to less than one! There is elegance in simplicity. Very few things are actually so complicated as people make them.

Keep it simple

The more we play-test the game, the more we are able to discern and keep what works, while ridding the game of what clearly doesn’t. Some of the changes have been bittersweet, and so many of the original ideas I tried to incorporate have been completely abandoned. Many of the core mechanics were solid, but demanded better calibration. One of the recurring patterns I’ve noticed during development, has been the ever expanding wealth of new ideas, which keep popping up. They have already taken the game beyond anything I ever imagined when development began nine months ago. And that will be the subject of tomorrow’s post.