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A jam submission

Goatel California - RootJam 2023View project page

A Faction Full of Family Friendly Fun
Submitted by Githe — 1 day, 16 hours before the deadline
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Goatel California - RootJam 2023's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Use of this year's theme#54.0004.000
Creativity/Uniqueness#74.3484.348
Clarity of Rules/Mechanics#103.1303.130

Ranked from 23 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Includes Law of Root?

Yes

Includes PnP?

Yes

Includes TTS files?

No

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Comments

These goats really fundamentally change the way the game is played at the table, more so than the usual mechanical flavor, amazing!
There are some things that I'm not sure I understood well, like scoring (not quite clear for me how much they score exactly) and crafting (you spend stomach cards for the cost but craft a card from your hand I think?), and I'm not a fan of the corvid way of scoring at the start of the turn, but not sure if it would cause issue for the goats.

Developer

Thank you so much for the comment, Pliskin!
Scoring is 1VP per player with pieces at hotels (guests) and 1VP per set of three hotels in a stack for a max of 6 VP in a four player game. Don't think I've ever gotten that much, but the "completed hotel" is if the other players decide to boycott. For crafting, you spend matching stomach cards to activate hotels, and craft a card still in your hand. Scoring at the start is so that hotel tiers have to stay on the board to score but players who took advantage of the hotel effects are counted even if you battle them.

Submitted(+1)

Aw man you guys have such good theming and the BEST lore for sure! The existence of gruff and his lil meeple friends would be good enough, but you gave him a backstory and even the VB card as I saw! I was very happy to be able to see them develop and see how the board itself changed over the course of time!

I think you also elegantly made some interactions and mechanics work elegantly that I was having trouble wording or smoothing out. As some examples: using cards for actions, scoring based on warriors count, stacking buildings on existing ones. Really impressed with how all of that was ironed out in a way I couldn't make work for my lil guys. 

Also love the additional mechanics actions put in such as leading through a forest, and thing that some bits of your faction would intertwine SUPER interestingly with the venues of my dudes! Great stuff!

Developer(+1)

Yeah but your art tho <3

Submitted(+1)

I really like the almost parasitic relationship between the Hotels and the Guests. I'm curious to see how players would balance getting the benefits of the hotel and allowing their presence to feel the faction points. This feels like a very interactable faction which I like considering that it feels like a single piece faction (wasn't totally sure but it felt like it based off the board)

Developer

We noticed a particularly explosive relationship between them and the Riverfolk because our original rule was "after you draw" and they pay to draw multiple times in a turn. I don't remember off the top of my head how we resolved that, but I liked that the otters had a gambling problem.

(+1)

This is a fun one. It reminds me of my fan faction Cirque du Goat a bit with the ability to share enable other factions to rule and with the use of goats. Some of the verbage on  the board leads to confusion. On programmed to receive, you talk about leading warriors through the forest. "Lead" isn't an action in Root, and so why not incorporate the word "move" in there instead? You also talk about matching cards, but that should just be 5 cards of a matching suit, right? There are small wording quibbles that I think could cause momentary confusion. They did for me, and I just think it could be worded a bit better. I love how hotels just keep stacking on top of each other and how "guests" get benefits from your hotels. It seems very interactive. Great work!

Developer

Thank you for stopping to provide feedback! I saw Cirque du Goat on a forum when I went looking for official art, and there's another goat faction in this jam! I think this means Leder Games needs to hurry up and introduce the official goat faction already ~.n 

Programmed to Receive was definitely the rule that got the most revision through playtest. Conceptually, it's pretty simple, move a piece through the gruff forest to a hotel... except it's not a 'Move' as it isn't to or from adjacent spaces. The included Law of Root should detail the specifics of the keyword (assuming we managed to keep the wording parallel through the multiple revisions, which I doubt.)