Well, I designed the game and put together a fairly functional prototype all in the same day. I tweeted a bit a few pictures and the project picked up steam quickly:
https://twitter.com/cheveedodd/status/2 … 52/photo/1
https://twitter.com/cheveedodd/status/2 … 20/photo/1
https://twitter.com/cheveedodd/status/2 … 90/photo/1
I did some solo testing and it seemed fine…. then I played it.
The mechanic is indeed fun. You flip out some cards that require a certain combination of buttons, then both players scramble to dig those cards out of the deck. That parts fine, but then there’s a break until the next card is flipped… repeat. It works well, it’s not “broken” but there is almost nothing else going for it. I added Newspapers and points which help quite a bit, but it still feels choppy… and the person that can grab cards the fastest out of a 27 card deck always wins.
So.
I want to make it more exciting and “strategic” so I think I’m going to change it up a bit. In stead of just a single House and Obstacle each round, there will be 5 pairs face-up. Players will start with their decks face-down in front of them and at the same time will begin flipping cards one at a time from the top of their deck. Flip 1, play 1, repeat. If you can’t use the card discard it and keep going. If you fill the requirements for a pair (or think you did) you pull that pair to your side of the table and keep going until all 5 pairs are claimed, or the players run out of cards in their deck (I’m going to try and tune it so this never happens.)
After all the pairs are claimed, the players look to see if they actually completed them and then score appropriately.
I think this will add more interaction and excitement by eliminating the lull between sets. We’ll see!