❖ Version History ❖
14th of October 2020
After the last playtest that happened with Mary in our previous Design Journal story, Ben and I are beginning to get a bit more eager about playing Phoenix Farm. To this point, we are interested in getting everyone from our friend group to try it out, and only two days after our last narrative was the next day I had off (so of course, it was time for more game night).
Getting the wide variety of opinions from our friends is critical to our design process. We have such a huge number of people that we are friends with, and each of them has different opinions on what is fun. Every new pair of eyes brings in inspiration & critical analysis on all fronts, and though we were very happy with the perspective of some people, we strive to impress as large a variety as we can!
Though it is literally the same week as our last adventure in the Design Journal, two very important things happened in our next play test:
1. The first thing was simple: we tried our first attempt at a 6-player game of Phoenix Farm! Very much to my surprise on this front, I am shocked at how well the mechanics of the game held together with so many people at the table. Normally there are no where near enough pieces with the addition of two more players, but from what I could tell, only about 12 more cards (2 in each category) would likely be enough to make 6-player just as possible as 4-player.
2. But something else happened that threw a little wrench in the plan during this game’s review. One of our players this evening (Steven Kilduff) was not as huge of a fan of how the game played out… and it didn’t have anything to do with the number of players in the game. It was more about how unfair the game felt if someone had a strong first few turns in the game versus someone having a few strong turns in the end game.
This second point was critical to the function of the game mechanics, and it was now the new target of my attention. Let’s get into why he was feeling this way and discuss the results of that conversation!
How / Why are the Early Turns better for “Good Luck”?
In Phoenix Farm, there is one mechanic that really throws off the entire balance of things. This mechanic is the “Farming” dice roll, and how its results can vary.
When a player “Farms”, they pick a tool that they want to use and roll a 6-sided dice:
1 = Critical Failure ~ Pay every other player +1 Feather
2 = Failure
3 = Failure
4 = Success, get a reward!
5 = Success, get a reward!
6 = Critical Success! ~ Get x2 Rewards!
Generally speaking, 1-5 are all fairly regular rewards, but any time any player hits the 6 on their dice roll, it leaves an intentionally dramatic impact on the forward movement of that player… but there is something chaotic that can happen with how this is setup:
If a player rolls a 6 for the first two dice rolls that they perform in the game, they are getting: x2 Eggs on the first turn & x2 chicks on the second turn. As a result… this player now has x3 phoenixes, while everyone else who had a normal first two turns is stuck with x1 phoenix until the next time that they attempt to hatch eggs.
Even through this moment in the mechanics, this lack of balance isn’t too bad… but! In the moment where a player must “Skip their turn to change an Elder Phoenix back into Phoenix Ash” a player can do this with up to x3 phoenixes at once. This means that, anyone who managed to hatch twins twice in the first round of gameplay will inevitably be given the opportunity to skip two turns ahead of ALL the other players.
This is a recipe for a game of butt-hurt players and bad times.
When Steve brought this point up in the game, I tipped my hat to him. He had a great point on how this aspect has been impacting the overall flow and feel of the game, and it is absolutely something that we should be considering in our construction of the game. Luckily for us as well, Steve had a very flavorful and interesting suggestion to make about how we might go about solving this issue.
“I like the flow and the feel of the game. the mechanics are fun, and the story / mythology behind it is a good flavor to be chasing… but there is something definitely missing. In most farming scenarios, there is always a threat of some kind, whether that be the weather, or perhaps a predator. Could you add something like that in? Like… a Dragon that is a natural hunter of Phoenixes? As if to say: the wolf is to the chicken coop as the dragon is to the phoenix coop?”
Ben and I locked eyes are started throwing around ideas behind how this idea might work if we were to bring it to life. Though we are completely unsure of how to make it fair at first, our initial objective is clear: We need a way for the player who is in last place to feel like they can catch up to their opponents who happen to get lucky early.
Back to the drawing board, as they always say! Till next time friends….
