Design Journal: Cards in Space and Imposter Syndrome.

This is the second post of my Cards in Space (working title) design journal. I am excited to talk about play testing this time. I have had a chance to bring out Cards in Space 2 times now and have my friends test it out. This is a very vulnerable moment for a budding game designer. When I bring my idea to the table especially with my close friends the imposter syndrome kicks in hard. What if they hate it? What if the game doesn't even work? Will they have fun?

Cards in Space Prototype

Well They did have fun and the game mostly worked with the exception of super torpedoes. I was relived during the second play test of Cards in Space that someone I had never met before was willing to try it out and had a good time with the game. I also had one of my oldest friends there playing and it was a little nerve racking to have both a stranger and my oldest friend playing one of my games. I have this feeling sometimes when I am working on this site. But I find if I just get going its not as scary and it helps that people are finally excited about the design on the first play.

This game is pretty random and that makes some of the math tricky but I want to start to zero in on everything

The first play test I had a normal deck of cards and a decoder sheet. This time I printed out cards with the info on them. This made the game go much faster. I still had the sheets so everyone knew what cards were in the deck.

I also changed up some of the numbers and special abilities to make more sense. I wanted to align the special abilities with the suit that they are associated with. So you know it made sense and wasn't just a pile of spare parts. I got some good feedback about the torpedoes being a bit strong so I brainstormed with the play testers and there was an idea that came up of having random damage on each card and a player could just draw a card for damage adding to the randomness of the game and lowering the firepower of the torpedoes.

Next steps are implementing some of the changes and then I want to start some statistical play testing where I record every aspect of the game. Things like total damage made vs hull and how long the game takes. This game is pretty random and that makes some of the math tricky but I want to start to zero in on everything. More to come in the next installment.