Design Decisions A-Plenty

After an exciting 2019 we’re now planning the optimizations we want to make in the game before launching on Kickstarter in the Spring… tough choices all. We already posted on one design challenge – thank you for the feedback on that! Lots of card testing followed and we think we have some conclusions!

We thought we’d list out the big buckets we’re working on for our next version. If you’re interested in playtesting please email feedback@timewarp.io and we’d love to talk! We have prototypes we can potentially send you and a new tabletopia version is coming!

Back to those challenges. Here are the seven big buckets!

1. Tokens: do we keep simple tokens? do we stamp the tokens with faction logo (yes)? do we change to meeples? do we have some kind of “other” tokens for chieftains/other types of unit?
2. Board construction: stick with hexes? Aggregate hexes? add “edges” or use the player mats to push together the board? or move to a static board with obstacles on top (did not seem popular)?
3. Decks: we already posted about this one and made a few clear decisions – more work to be done to finalize! So we move to a single deck (yes!), mostly pattern cards (yes!), how many cards? Remove some specific ones? Get some design the special move icons!
4. Game Story: rework of the manual, story and tie in to gameplay to make it more compelling… a very open ended challenge!
5. Gameplay (this is actually the biggest and maybe it should be #1!): stick with what we have exactly? Add different pieces? Change ending conditions, add a a mid-game goal/driver? try out some more new mechanics like a token stacking mechanic?
6. Tribes and strategic points: balancing the powers to fit with new game mechanics, bringing them more into the game, but simplifying at the same time – not too easy!
7. Build and component decisions: shrinking things, making number of tokens smaller, increasing quality, miniatures or not? Checking out what different manufacturers can do!

Lots of challenges beyond these as well, but you’ll see us work on these over the next couple of months. The gameplay items are by far the most important and all this needs to be tested so we’ll be planning a lot of playtests as well! Please let us know on the email address above if you’re interested in helping out!

Happy 2020!