Hey there Ricketeers! I finally got to playtest the new version of the boardgame! Overall I think this was an improvement over the last version, but there are still some things that need to be tweaked. General consensus was that playtime was too long and the rules to confusing. I think what did it were all the various helper and action cards. I really liked making them and how they affected your rolls on different things(I blame Digimon Digital Card Battle for that), but it was tough keeping up on all of them and found myself being lenient on some of the skeletons/crooked helpers because I didn't want to discourage the new players. Not a good sign.
How you win is by getting fame tokens, and how you get fame tokens is by performing, and how you perform is by doing a perform roll with a die. One of the critiques was that the player should do something other than roll a die so as not t get it confused with the movement roll, or at least have a different die, which I agree with. She suggested some type of spinny thing or a boggle thing, which could be fun, but I also realized that performing and getting fame tokens is based solely on luck. Sure, you could use helpers, but acquiring those helpers is also based mostly on luck(being at the right space and having the right amount of cash to purchase).
I'd really like some way of acquiring fame tokens that requires skill and makes players feel they really won them. In D&D, doing anything is based on a dice roll, but it's also using the base rolls of that character that he or she knows to be special. I was thinking I could give the characters special attributes like that, but that would make the game even more complicated.
I also had the idea that you would have to choose a speciality at the beginning of the game, (singing, dancing, acting, joke telling, arts, etc.) and each player would actually have to perform in front of the other players in order to get a fame token, but if I were playing that game I don't know how keen I would be of acting out. Thoughts?
Also, there was a critique that there wasn't enough to do with money and fame tokens. Sure you need fame tokens to win, and get you into higher levels, but other than that, what purpose do they do? And the money can buy you stuff, but only if you're at the right spot at the right time. Some players were flat out broke, but others(myself included) were bleeding bills with nothing to do with it. Which, honestly, now that I think of it, is kind of awesome because it mimics real life society. Go me.
Also also, someone missed the customizable board I had last time. So if I can figure out a way to make it the same basic way with a class system and the end space in the middle but still have customizable pieces, I will. Someone suggested I make a 3 dimensional board with the higher class rungs being actually higher, which would be cool, but I have no idea how I'd pull it off.
Also the third, it was about twenty pages of paper to print out the entire game, not including the rules. Luckily I went to kinkos, but I still think it's an ungodly amount. Maybe if I cut down on all the cards it will help.
So in conclusion, fix the rolling, make the rules less confusing, do more with the tokens and have a shorter playtime. I'll work on it. Perhaps I'll do some animating in between even.
Stay tuned Ricketeers!
