shinjuku

Playtest #11

Thu 13 Sept 2018

Participants: self, AdamB, JeffB, JoshO’M

Overview

• Testing:
  • No starting setup phase.
  • Place 1 customer at start of each turn
  • 48 customers (same for 2,3,4-player)
  • 4 customer types (remove ⭒)
  • 15/12/9 track for 2/3/4-player
  • Otherwise, same as playtest 10: players have 1 store per type and 2 dept stores; dept stores are the 1st upgrade and give 1 wild

Components

• 18”x20” board with Map of Tokyo
• 72 Ward cards
• 4 stores per player (1 of each type)
• 15/12/9 track for 2/3/4-player
• 2 dept stores per player
• 48 Customer tokens:
  • 15 ◯, 13 ⤫, 11 △, 9 ▢

Rules

Setup

• Deal 5 cards to each player

Turns

Place a random customer at start of turn

Each turn take 2 different actions:

• Pay a card, build a store in that ward
• Pay a customer, upgrade a store to a dept store
• Pay a card, lure customers from that ward
• Pay any 1 card to build 1 track; pay 3 cards to build 2 connected track
• Take income: draw up to 5 cards, or draw 1 card if you already have 5 cards. Taking this action ends your turn.

Final turn

When last customer is placed, everyone takes one additional turn.

Comments

Customers are currently public information. Consider whether or not they should be hidden.

Needed to shuffle cards twice during game.

Oops! Accidentally had one extra ▢ for 10 ▢ total (49 total customers).

Mid-game switch to allowing dept store everywhere because one player played all their stores on places where dept stores can’t be built.

• “Feel bad” moment - can’t build dept store

Ran out of actions to do at endgame. If you can’t get a customer, then there’s nothing good to do. No track or stores.

Need to have more than 4 stores per player.

How to have more customers without having the game take too long?

Another feel bad moment: If the number of customers is supposed to be exact then players feel bad at the end of the game when they discover that the count is off.

• “Who forgot to draw a customer during their turn?”
• Also, players not sure what to do with the customers that they sacrifice for the dept store.
• Solution: Put customers back in the bag/cup so that the total number of turns varies a bit.

Game duration: ~1hr

• Jeff: ◯◯ ⤫ △△ ▢ = 4 (remove ◯ or △)
• Josh: ◯◯ ⤫ △ ▢ = 3 (remove ◯)
• Adam: ◯ ⤫⤫⤫ △△△ ▢▢▢▢ = 7 (remove ▢)
• Gary: ◯◯◯◯◯ ⤫⤫⤫ △△△△ ▢ = 8 (remove ◯)

Leftover track: 0 except for Josh: 1, Gary: 1

Further Discussion

What felt bad?

Stuck. No track or stores.

JB: Possible dept store fix: ability to move store

Lack of endgame actions.

JOM: I can only cycle cards

JB: Maybe have customers come twice as fast near end of game.

Action to draw customers. Play cards to place random customers.

AB: Add screen to hide customers to discourage AP behavior.

Suggestions/Actions

For next playtest:

• More stores per player: 7/6/5 for 2/3/4-player
• Allow stores to be moved (you can build from your pool or from your existing stores)
• Dept Store upgrade costs 1 matching card + 1 matching customer
• Put paid customer back into bag/cup so it gets drawn again later
• Summon action: discard N cards to place N customers
• Bypass action: play a card during Lure to bypass all stations in the matching ward