Hi! I played with your Version 2.0. Thanks again for the plain version
suggestions/comment
maybe you can use icons ♥♦♣♠ to replace the terms ? Or at least use them once, it could become a more "visual" game, easy to read. At the beginning, I made a mistake because I misunderstood how to progress in the year (played late at night and I was thinking each cards stack was an full year. Thankfully, your season's tables are clear and I understood the game system with these tables :) )
spring table: links go to jon reviews website ; but with the title chart on the pdf, it was easy to find Season charts
the character sheet is a good idea. I didn't print it but I copied itwith a pencil and helped me to understand all the necessary elements to put in the sheet (it's more easy to understand with a picture than with just text)
I played first in silence and then with Faun songs : music gave an ambiance perfect to imagine my character in a mystical forest
While reading your game, I saw two close games that you may know or you might love: A Quiet Year (writing season after season), and Après l'Accident (a french diary writing game about being alone in an unknown place after an accident). Your game has the specificity to be played in a place the character already know, but with new events; as if he saw the forest becoming more dangerous and change in front of his eyes, and that's pretty cool
first year in the life of Peter
I wrote my diary in French, so I'm writing here an English summary
character: I got Strong + Fey expert traits. The second one made me thing of Peter Pan (I saw again the recent movie yesterday so yeah that's a classic inspiration). I was thinking about a character named Peter (without last name), which grew up in the forest, near to faeries without knowing it. He's not totaly human but he doesn't know this fact. And he's strong because he likes climbing trees, but he's undernourished (to justify the -1 strength stat)
spring: [clean weather + fairy queen] Peter was walking around, he saw a wolf walking; he waited until the wolf was far away and then heard crying. He met the fairy queen.
summer: [clean + standard wolf + stealth] Peter often returns to the places where he saw the fairy. One day, he met with the wolf. He almost died, but the fairy came back to save him [Fairy Favor used].
fall: [rain + illness] Peter got sick. He sees his food stock decrease and it frightens him.
winter: [cold + quiet night] Peter rested. He's no longer sick and he is in better health. He has hope for next year.
stats at the end: 8/10 health / 2 foods. Health increase to MAX 11, then it decreases to MAX 10. That was a pretty quiet and "normal" year. Maybe newt year he will meet monsters ! :)
Thank you for playing! I wanted to let you know that some of this stuff was improved for the 2.1 update. Version 2.0 was critical to push out ASAP since the prior version was missing things/had a few mistakes. Version 2.1 is what I'd consider feature complete, or the final product.
Anyway, I want to address each of your comments here:
Using icons: This is a great suggestion, if I can find some nice color ones that would be an easy to do. Finding commercial use icons for playing card suits is actually really hard turns out. Main reason I didn't use them. That said, I'm very glad that the tables made play easier and clear. To address the mistake issue, I've now provided examples in the book so players can avoid any mistakes.
Spring table links: I've double checked all the links on the Spring table (and the others) only to discover that some of the links became broken. Thank you very much for bringing that to my attention. When I streamlined the bestiary a few of them slipped by me. Should be fixed now though. Edit - I also noticed that the way I linked to my website was baking into parts of the doc, which was the main reason for the issue. However, the link thing was a problem on a few entries.
Character Sheet: I'm glad this helped. I had extra time, and even though this was kind of an afterthought, I used that when I was playtesting myself so thought I should just make it available to everyone. You may like to know that I added even more tools for the player (like cheat sheets for weather and play order) alongside the character sheet.
Music: That's a great idea! Anything to help you get more immersed :)
Other Games: You aren't the first person to tell me that this reminded them of A Quiet Year! I do own this title, but have never played. It really was a happy accident that it draws that comparison. The other one you mention, Après l'Accident, I've never heard of. I'll have to check it out now. Thanks for the recommendation!
I really enjoyed reading your play report! It sounds like you had fun with the game, even if there were a few hiccups in the experience. Hopefully if you decide to pick it up again with the new version you'll find the experience all the better :) Thank you again for playing and providing the wonderful feedback!
I finished the game (Peter died) with the 2.0 version, but I'll look at the 2.1 version to see your improvements !
icons: you can use the ALT + 3 to ALT + 6 icons. You should have ♥♦♣♠ typographic icons that you can enlarge to put at the size you want. Or look at websites like publicdomainvectorsor freepik; maybe you'll find what you want.
great for news about links and character sheet! ☺
other games: I guess Après l'Accident exists only in french at the moment, and its author Nicolas Gulix is currently on others projects so I don't know if it will be translated. But A quiet year is for sure in english; and I have no doubt that many other inspiring games exist in English!
Yes I had fun with your game! I really like to see stories being build little by little according to luck (with cards and tables)
Comments
Hi! I played with your Version 2.0. Thanks again for the plain version
suggestions/comment
first year in the life of Peter
I wrote my diary in French, so I'm writing here an English summary
character: I got Strong + Fey expert traits. The second one made me thing of Peter Pan (I saw again the recent movie yesterday so yeah that's a classic inspiration). I was thinking about a character named Peter (without last name), which grew up in the forest, near to faeries without knowing it. He's not totaly human but he doesn't know this fact. And he's strong because he likes climbing trees, but he's undernourished (to justify the -1 strength stat)
spring: [clean weather + fairy queen] Peter was walking around, he saw a wolf walking; he waited until the wolf was far away and then heard crying. He met the fairy queen.
summer: [clean + standard wolf + stealth] Peter often returns to the places where he saw the fairy. One day, he met with the wolf. He almost died, but the fairy came back to save him [Fairy Favor used].
fall: [rain + illness] Peter got sick. He sees his food stock decrease and it frightens him.
winter: [cold + quiet night] Peter rested. He's no longer sick and he is in better health. He has hope for next year.
stats at the end: 8/10 health / 2 foods. Health increase to MAX 11, then it decreases to MAX 10. That was a pretty quiet and "normal" year. Maybe newt year he will meet monsters ! :)
Thank you for playing! I wanted to let you know that some of this stuff was improved for the 2.1 update. Version 2.0 was critical to push out ASAP since the prior version was missing things/had a few mistakes. Version 2.1 is what I'd consider feature complete, or the final product.
Anyway, I want to address each of your comments here:
I really enjoyed reading your play report! It sounds like you had fun with the game, even if there were a few hiccups in the experience. Hopefully if you decide to pick it up again with the new version you'll find the experience all the better :) Thank you again for playing and providing the wonderful feedback!
I finished the game (Peter died) with the 2.0 version, but I'll look at the 2.1 version to see your improvements !
Yes I had fun with your game! I really like to see stories being build little by little according to luck (with cards and tables)
Thank you for the advice on the icons and for the kind words. I'd reply in more depth, but I'm on mobile right now. Glad you enjoyed the game! :)