When: Sunday, Feb 9, 2003, 2pm

Who: Me, Crash, Kent, and Nat

Experience: All players were experienced gamers, though none other than I had seen this game before.

Notes:

We got soda cups from The Original and used them as dice cups.

They all took to the game rapidly, and really enjoyed it. There is real depth to the game, and we'd often find novel situations where someone had to think ahead to the round after the current round, as well as what the other players had done, and what that meant for their hands. There was much more folding in this playtest, probably because we were a little more competitive, and covetous of our stones.

When playing 4-player, two players are usually eliminated quickly, within two or three rounds. The match between the remaining two players can take a while, because while the bets are still fixed at 3 per round, each player now has stones originally allotted to four players, so they naturally have a lot more. This balance can go on for quite a while, boring the remaining two players who can't rejoin play until the current round ends.

Problem: Still have to find a simple solution to the dice-cup issue.

Problem: The 4-sided match marker still presented a problem. First problem was that the D4s start at 1, not 0. The first solution was to count down from 4 to 1, elimination-style, and the last man standing wins, except this means that players eliminated early will be out of play for a very long time, which isn't good for a table game. Also, elimination from 4 to 0 means that a full game for 4 people takes from 12 to 15 matches, which can take a good long while. Hours, at least. If you play first to 4 wins, it can take from 4 to 13 matches, which is a lot more versatile and competitive. [I'm not sure what I was thinking there, but I was wrong. Counting down from 4 to 0, where counting down is a good thing, would result in a win after 4-13 games. I still don't like it though, as the idea of wanting your die to go down is in conflict with the metaphor of pips as currency (or at least valuable). Wanting more pips on three dice and less on the fourth would likely create a cognitive disconnect, as it did just now.]

Problem: It's not always easy to remember who won the last round, and thus who bids first. This data isn't implicit in the state of the game unless the other players have less than three stones. As a result, one player will usually cast a stone in to force the raise, and if nobody does, then we recall who won the last round. If a player needs to know what another player will do before deciding, we recall and force the person closer in clockwise sequence from the last winner to call or fold first.

In a 4-player game, when the players get down to two, all bets and antes much be 2 stones instead of 1. If it's a player's last stone, then they can get away with just playing the one. (This goes along with the 'let them ride free' zero stone rule.) Also, if any or all of the stones a given player adds are whites, then that player rerolls.

The chart should look like this:

# of stones per ante/bid
Total Players	Players Remaining
	2	3	4	5	6
2	1
3	1	1
4	2	1	1
5	2	2	1	1
6	3	2	2	1	1

Revision: As a solution to both the problem of the 4D marker dice and remembering who won the last round in order to determine who bids first, I'm eliminating the D4 dice entirely, and replacing them with a single 'marker token.'

When a player wins a match, they claim the marker, taking it from the previous match winner, if necessary. That player is now 'prime' (for lack of a better word.) The 'prime' player always has to bet first in the subsequent match, unless a player shortcuts and puts a stone in, forcing the issue.

Revision to the goal state: The win goal state for the game is to win a match while already prime. If anyone else wins a match, they become prime, but a prime who wins, wins the game.

This enhances gameplay in two ways: First, it accomplishes one of the original design goals of making the game possibly long-lasting, but also possible to be won with very short notice. In theory, even in a 4-person game, someone could win after four 'hands' equating to two very fast rounds. On average (assuming equally matched players), a full game would last about 3-4 matches, but could conceivably last longer.

Since everyone who is not 'prime' has a common interest in not letting the prime win, they may find it beneficial to act together to stop the prime, as much as they can. Note that in a 2-player game, the average game would last 2-3 matches, and constitutes a rather shorter time commitment, unless the players choose to play several games.