shinjuku

Playtest #69

Wed 10 Jun 2020

Participants: Bryn S, Roger M, Bryan K

Testing

• Incentives for building Department Stores
  • Is the building bonus sufficient to motivate players to build department stores quickly?
• Does including mods in the intro game distract players from the core game?
  • Including Princess and Kaiju mod
• Rules: v2 r6
  • with change so that Dept Store bonus can be any customer type (don’t need to be select a single customer type for each token)

Comments

Game teach required ~ 25 minutes

Two languages is distracting - Japanese dominates the labels

Enjoying the Princess mod

BK: The base game has enough complexity that doesn’t feel the need to think about the mods (Princess)

BS: Dept bonus could have been 0 stars - there was still enough motivation to get them out.

Score

	BrynS (R)	RogerM (G)	BryanK (B)
4-sets	8 x10 = 80	2 x10 = 20	4 x10 = 40
3-sets	0	3 x6 = 18	3 x6 = 18
2-sets	0	0	1 x3 = 3
single	0	2 x1 = 2	0
total	80	41	61

End of game comments

Roger

• Not used to heavy games
• Didn’t watch the queue (of upcoming customers) that much
• enjoyed the game
• princess - relied on big time
• after building the first dept sore
  • liked the incentive - felt good
• struggled with the Japanese
  • it overpowers the game
  • fine once you’re familiar with it
• otherwise a lot of fun
• To aid in scoring, perhaps a player aid that made them easy to line up and count

Bryan

• cool game
• favorite part:
  • doesn’t usuallly like games with strong themes
  • but likes the theme here because he likes japanees culure
• like route building
• had trouble with strategy
  • even at end of game
  • doesn’t feel like he quite has a grasp of the best way to play
    • Question: is that pos, neg or neutral comment?
      • neutral, i suppose
      • but would be a problem if it was a game I had no connection to
      • but since the connection to theme was good
  • liked mechanics
  • liked it enough to play again
• similar to roger
  • didn’t look at queue enough
  • overall strategy didn’t quite click into place
  • got a sense of customers, but didn’t look ahead to spend cards
• set collection was interesting
  • but didn’t pay atention to it that much
  • so didn’t score as high
• didn’t look at expansions
• I think i would like it more with repeated play

Bryn

• Background:
  • I’ve been in industry for 10 years
  • primarily in role of professional developer
  • never seen a prototype this refined
  • smoothest playthrough of any proto
• what I want to see:
  • i could jump in easily at the start.
  • ignored kaiju because it wasn’t strategicsally control with it.
    • never saw an opportunity to use it
• middle of the game became sluggish
  • just collecting sets
  • my brain for last 2/3rd of game was just: how do I get things I don’t have
• I wanted something more about middle of the gmame
  • there’s already a lot
  • but wanted opportunites to build outside of sets
• with enough playthroughts
  • it would become stale like chess
• would love to see something about the game that ramps the puzzle

• right now the game becomes easier as the game progresses

• beginning puzzliness is enjoyable
• around middle began to lose that
  • just looking for the next set
• I woudm’t mind seeing something core to the game that ramps the puzzle all the way to end

Roger:

• what if customers “stuck” to the dept store
  • leave it on top to change the game as it progressed
  • Problem: dept stores are currently wild (all customers), so this might reduce their value. could be used to “attack” other players dept stores.

Bryn:

• Speaking about Brass
  • Brass is what he initially thought when he saw it
• What keeps the puzzle in Brass interesting:
  • is when the rules change
  • the requirements change
  • a different resouce - a new dyanmic
• Make building more challenging
  • midway through the game

Suggestions/Actions

• UX fixes:
  • Adjust snap point for Ebisu - too close to some track Issue 53
  • Shift Blue and Green hidden regions over a bit since they hide one of the cards on the hand (since the card overlaps with the hidden region) Issue 54
    • Not a gameplay problem, but the players appear to be missing a card which can be a distraction
  • Investigate changing outer ring around customers/stores so that each type is different. This can make them more easily distinguished from a distance. Issue 55
  • Investigate putting marking on side of customers (like dots for double-customers) so they can be distinguished when stacked (like poker chips). Issue 55
  • Consider adding a note on the board that the number of customers in the queue is always equal to # of dept stores + 2. Issue 56
• Rules clarifications:
  • Can start a Move action from an empty station Issue 57
    • as long as there is track leading out
  • You cannot move/relocate a department store Issue 59
  • Edge case with needing to move across track when there are multiple customers: Issue 60
    • The segment connecting Shinjuku and Yoyogi counts as track
  • With regards to playing a card for double-track: Issue 58
    • Feels good to play card and then do a thing. Phrase the rule that way.
• Is there a better order of operation for placing customers from the queue/refreshing to make it easier to track the number of customers that must be drawn? Issue 56
  • Draw all the customers first? But the order in which they are drawn sometimes affects where they are placed.
• Investigate making a player aid to assist with final scoring. Issue 61
• Can the department store perform double-duty and be more interesting?
• Can the puzzle ramp up as the game progresses?