Intermission
After nine rounds of testing, the gameplay itself is running smoothly. There are still some open issues that carried over from playtest to playtest. Most of these issues relate directly to the form-factor of the game, as opposed to the rules and actual gameplay.
Before continuing on with playtesting, I'll summarize the open issues I'm hoping to resolve in upcoming playtests:
- Stone-swapping - Would some form of stone-swapping between willing players, black for white, or two black for one white, be beneficial, or create an overly stable equilibrium, letting players team up to overwhelm the prime player?
- Color-matched D6 dice to match the D12 - I want to track down sets D6 dice that match the D12 I already have. I like the 4 colors they have, though for production I would like 6 unique colors, packaged two to a set, so one set facilitates 2-player play, while two or three sets facilitate 4 and 6 player games respectively.
- Find or craft a marker-token - Find a good marker piece with a tactile value comissurate with the endemic value of the piece in the game context.
- Theme the game - Find a metaphor that closely maps the game's architecture, focusing on the 'prime' and 'ascention' part of the game. This will lead the determination of the game vocabulary (round/match/game, stone, name for the D12, the marker, and the game name itself) and will assist in helping the game propogate word-of-mouth and will also make the rules easier to remember.
- Find a "way to selectively obscure a dice roll" - Rather than just thinking about 'how do I package a dice cup with the game' I'd like to examine the broader concept of how to keep a roll's value hidden from opponents, while also ensuring that the player can't alter the roll out of sight of other players.
- Vocabulary - Work on the game's vocabulary, in light of the game's chosen metaphor. A constant terminology is needed for the concepts of 'match', 'round' and 'game.' Also, the D12 die should have a better name than 'the big die.'