Testing Goals (First Round)

The prototype is now printed, and a testing date is being set. As of writing, the goal is this Saturday; whether that will be reality is yet to be seen. Hypothetical dates aside, the crux of the matter is the testing itself, and with this being the maiden voyage of the new boiled-down ruleset, it is focused primarily on comprehension, unit value, and skill value.

Previously, these had been the major pain points for players when testing. Most likely due to the fact that I was trying to dump a lot of information on them all at once to bring them up to speed in the fifteen or so minutes I had before we started playing. So my goal for this upcoming testing session is twofold:

1] Have I boiled things down enough to be understandable without being simplistic?

2] Do players now see the value their chosen Commander and units give towards their win condition and play style?

Brawl Commander Info Card (Front)

Hopefully, things have been pared down sufficiently that I can establish a clearer baseline for strategic complexity and overall game balance. Once that’s in place, I can start building on top of that and introduce more complexity on a gradient for each faction. Essentially, once the foundation is established, the plan is to assign each player a Brawl, Plot, and Swarm Commander within their respective faction, with those commanders representing a unique take on the core concepts of DPS, Tank, and Support. This way, no one faction gets pigeonholed too hard, hopefully leading to players wanting to experiment with different factions and alt rulesets.

Brawl Commander Info Card (Back)

However, that’s all down the pipe at the moment, and I can’t make those more elaborate commanders and abilities without first knowing what the upper cognitive load is for players. A subject I should know more about by Saturday.