Group 17 - Playtesting Notes

Playtesting Notes

Our group discussed various changes to the game structure before our first playtest. Initially the game was going to be rather serious and strongly focused on fictional politics but eventually we redirected the game towards a more lighthearted path. A major addition we made to the game was the inclusion of 6 alien species a player can choose from to represent them and their election campaign in the game.

The resulting game was a worldbuilding game where players debate on behalf of their species on how they would change the world based on topic cards with a "debate host" judging who had the better (or funnier) argument.

·     Lighten the mood of the game by making it less political and more lighthearted for the game play experience to be more engaging rather than being tense

·     Eliminate all political elements from the list of topics for debate

           -   Topics such as tax, welfare and city development would not be included

·     Use “wacky” topics while maintaining the election aspect of the game

           -  Examples are such as,

                   : “If I am elected, everyone will have really snazzy hats.”

                   : “All architecture will have mandatory vending machines that dispense                       fresh oranges.”

·     New set of topics should mostly consist of everyday objects as well as seemingly random concepts and ideas

·     Assigning certain traits for each alien species and their respective town/planet for a better structure

           -  Examples for traits

                   : Geological; underwater, mountains, cave, jungle, desert, etc

                   : Personality; snarky, introverted, goofy, optimistic, etc

·    Traits should remain neutral and lighthearted and have a limited effect on how the player will present their arguments

·     Adding dice as a part of the game so the players can be randomly assigned to one of the alien species and its town

·     Miscellaneous changes to the rules including time limit for each argument

The actual playtesting went very smoothly and at the moment, we as a group don't think there are any big changes that need to be made.

We also conducted additional playtest with some friends outside of school on Discord and it went on for hours with good results. Any difficulties they encountered were quickly resolved after the first round as the game was easy to learn and they have plans to play the game again with a bigger group next time. 

Attached are various election promises that players on their turn made over the course of playtesting with rather hilarious results. The species/traits mechanic we added helped add some challenge to the game and was well balanced based on playtest results. Even players at a disadvantage during certain topics had room to make great debates.

Feedback provided by friends outside of our development group was just to consider another name for the game, as they believed it didn't fit the content too well.