Monday, February 23, 2015

UD Con XXII: Giant Robot Con - Punching Things in the Face Edition Play Test

Wow that title was a mouthful...

Anyways, this past weekend I held my second public play test of Daikaiju Director at the coolest Con in Dayton: FASFAC's 22nd annual UD Con! I got to see some old friends and meet some awesome new folks this year. On top of that I had a blast running all of my events. (Not all of the Daikaiju Director related) FASFAC always hosts a wonderful con and I look forward to going every year in the foreseeable future.

Before I get into the details of the play test, let me show off something I got in the mail Friday (just in time for con.) Behold the prototypes for the boxes of the first two sets of Daikaiju Director!


Now the images of the monsters will definitely change when the temporary standees are finally replaced by the actual minis of the monsters or possible even some art. Anyways, let's take a closer look at "Daikaiju Director: First Contact." 


The first set of Daikaiju Director will feature the dauntless Space Hunter X, the mysterious Eelian, the ferocious Fenrir, and the explosive Vulcanus. I'll tell all of you more about them in the coming weeks. This is the set I tested at Con, and everyone's response was overwhelmingly positive and encouraging. I got some excellent constructive criticism from people much more experienced in game design than me. Let's take a look inside the box.


All four twist decks fit snugly in the box. As you can see, each monster has its own unique design for the back of their respective deck. There's also four slots for each of the monster minis. Right now the temporary standees are sitting in there awaiting the next game.

I'd like to give a shout out to my dad for not only surprising me by building these amazing boxes, but also for designing the cards, printing them out and cutting close to 1000 corners just to get all of this ready for me before Con. Thank you so much for making this past weekend that much more awesome.


Here's a closer look at the second set, "Daikaiju Director: Age of Monsters," but more on that later.


Here's a candid photo of me participating in one of the play test games. If I remember correctly, this was taken shortly before the other two players turned the tables and beat me. That's embarrassing. 

Anyways, I've some takeaways from this weekend include the following:

- Vulcanus is still overpowered, but his stats are near perfect. I need to consider revising his twist cards or how lava works; maybe both.
- Eelian is deceptively powerful.
- Fenrir can be a bit of a glass canon since he draws a lot of aggro really early.
- Space Hunter X has a lot going for him, particularly his ranged attack ability.
- I need to look into letting players spend energy to play more twist cards.
- Some twist cards have unforeseen side effects when they're all able to be played at anytime. Consider making some playable at anytime and some only on your turn.
- The game is simple enough to teach new players how to play in under 10 minutes.
- I need a more structured format for gathering player feedback.

All in all, everything went great and I want to thank the University of Dayton and FASFAC for letting me play test Daikaiju Director this weekend. We're one step closer to the finished product!

That's all for this installment from your direct source for everything Daikaiju Director. Tune in sometime in the near future for your introduction to Space Hunter X: the interstellar kaiju bounty hunter!

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