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We were in Vegas and we had free Friday. So we spent it visiting Pinball Hall of Fame and talking about games. I was pretty lucky – our merry company was joined by Eric M. Lang. That meant a lot of interesting discussions about game design.
‘Don’t give players too many choices’, he said at some point.
‘Player love choices!’ I objected.
‘There are games where they need them and there are games when they don’t need them. Not every game needs to have so many strategic choices.’
He was right. Imperial Settlers needs some choices. Stronghold needs many choices. Rattle, Battle? Ignacy, just give people some fun. Give them a break!
I came to Poland, I looked at prototype and I took a blade. Sharp, shinny blade. And I began to cut.
***
We have now two main ways of scoring points in the game – you can sink Merchants for 1 VP per ship or you can bring loot and give it to Pirate King scoring 1 VP per two loot tokens. Pretty simple, huh?
So players get three main choices in the game. In the Shipyard, where each round they upgrade their ship, they can choose from:
Sail: if you have a sail, you will be able to move your dice after the dice drop. Let’s face it, dropping 20 dice into box is crazy random. Everything might happen. A sail is your insurance. If you have them, you will move your dice after the drop and adjust to the situation.
Hold: if you have a hold, you will be able to bring more Loot to the port. Therefore you will have more resources to spend in port and buy more upgrades (in a long term strategy your ship will be so much better than the ships of other players) or you will just spend loot at the Pirate King’s home and grab VP for every two loot tokens.
Cannon: if you have a cannon, you will be able to shoot Merchants, and therefore score Victory Points. As simple as that. You need to be lucky during the dice drop, but if you are, you just score fat shiny Victory Points.
Simple? As hell. After so many play testing games and after so many demo games at conventions I see players choosing each of these strategies, guys who hate bad luck and invest in sails, guys who love to build and grab as many loot as possible to upgrade their ships, and guys who just want to have fun and sink Merchants.
It is so simple. And yet, everybody will find their way to play and enjoy the game.
What’s your choice? 🙂
