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The Swamp Syndicate RootJam 2024's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Clarity of Rules/Mechanics | #8 | 3.579 | 3.579 |
| Creativity/Uniqueness | #9 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Use of this year's theme | #14 | 3.421 | 3.421 |
Ranked from 19 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Includes Law of Root?
No
Includes PnP?
Yes
TTS File URL (If you've uploaded to workshop)
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3246679296
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Comments
My favorite animal epic they are getting some love finally! great work I generally agree with ColeBlocher's write up very thorough. 1. need any help playtesting? 2. Think you will release a version.2 after more testing/feedback?
Haha hope of some your platy-pals some justice here! Figured the lil guys are SO weird that they'd give me lots of design space to work with!
For sure will need help playtesting soon! And yup I'm going to continue to release new versions of em, wanna print em off at some point!
Very interesting!!! I like the one time use abilities, especially that other factions will be able to see if you have them to use for the upcoming turn, which allows them to plan around them, which is a nice touch. The mutations mechanic as a whole seems very well thought out. The only concerning mutation is the woodland alliance mutation, which seems EXTREMELY strong, even without the ability to get it by just attacking a lone sympathy. Maybe change it to a free build or MORE FUN IDEA, be able to use it to get guerilla warfare if anyone attacks your mutant (defender gets higher roll), then it could act as an effective deterrent, as well as a strong ability for the one time use. The other mutations seem fairly balanced, with the potential exception of the Lord of the Hundreds mutation (maybe just one less hit in that battle instead of no hits) and the riverfolk one (I would make this a "draw two card and keep one", I think that is more balanced and thematic). It's unclear how you get general mutations. Can you get them in the same battle as when you get a faction specific mutation? Do you have to choose one mutation per battle? Are there four or eight total? Do they refresh as normal? (potential idea: maybe make general mutations only refresh when mutant dies and hatches again, idk) It seems like a good idea overall, so there isn't ever a clearing you don't want to battle in, as most clearings will probably have at least one token in them, even if it is just a general mutation. Last potential change to mutations: you can't use them in the same time that you gain them. If you attack the hundreds with a basic type mutation, then you can't use the hundreds mutation until the next turn.
It seems that this faction may struggle to recruit enough warriors, but perhaps this is intentional as the mutant is a powerhouse. I would like the necessary and thematic nerf to have the mutant lose all mutations when killed, I think it just makes sense, and then you can maybe make it a little easier to recruit, so its easier to defend your mutant.
The venomous spurs is overpowered. Pick two from these possible changes:
Make it more expensive - 2 cards for the ability, forces you to know when you want to use them
Make it only work on defense - Platypuses only use this for defensive purposes anyway
Make it weaker - You can only reroll ONE of the dice, not both
Make it more situational/add counterplay - It only works in battles WITHOUT the mutant
Finally, the generators. I think 8 might be just too many... I think limiting it to 6 in total would be a good change. However, with the current rate of recruiting, these might be eaten up on your backlines anyway, and might never even get close to 8 in total, so I don't know if this change is necessary.
Theme - lovely. Platypuses are weird and I like how matchup dependent it is, not because strength changes, but because your ENTIRE PLAYSTYLE needs to change based on opposing factions, which is great
Mechanics - well thought out and elegant. A few changes (some faction ones are overpowered, and the change so you can't use them the same turn you gain them). A little hard to figure out without a law of root, but I'm sure it is easy to understand with one
Sacrifice - Im going to be honest, not really there
Venomous spurs - overpowered
Recruiting - underpowered
All in all, a great, well thought out, unique faction idea. I'd love to see this in the game
Hey! Super glad you checked em out, and appreciate the massive and thoughtful writeup you've made. Been noticing you've done em for each faction and it's much appreciated! Especially with a summary near the end!
Thanks for the feedback on mutations! Like the idea of the change for the WA and LOTH mutations, very glad that the cast majority ended up more or less balanced. The only one I'm very attached to it the riverfolk one, but with the existence of favours... I might have to let em go 😭.
Good idea on clearing up general mutations in a law of root. Basically how they work is to be added to a game with less than 5 opponents, just so you've always got 5 mutations to target for. Even in the WORST games you should need more than four of these. I should definitely add the clarification of "one mutation per battle", nice catch! Would wanna playtest em more before I change the timing window of when to use mutations yet.
When the mutant is killed, you end up not being able to use any mutations next turn anyway, meaning you don't have those specific ones to target for points again. Losing the mutations would actually be a bit of a BUFF I think, but maybe a necessary one. We'll see!
The OP-ness of venomous spurs was meant to offset their vulnerability when it comes to warriors, I gotta see if it actually does this or if it's as OP as they seem. Good suggestion tho. The idea of their bad warrior count has to do with their sacrifice mechanic, you only get ANY actions above one if you permanently lock away your own warrior for the rest of the game in the mutations, with NO ESCAPE. A balance between warrior presence and actions.
Not sure if they'll ever ever get the chance to have 8 generators in my playtesting :P
Thank SOOOO much for the massive and thoughtful writeup! Much appreciated!
Yep, that makes sense for the general mutations, sounds good for that overall.
I didn’t understand the idea of locking away warriors to use for actions. I thought that the number of current mutations you had available controls your actions. I’ll need more explanation on that mechanic, because it sounds like, based on your comment, it will be very easy to get a high action economy, while I thought it was tied to mutations, not sacrificed warriors. That entire interaction was unclear on the board. When I said limited warrior count, I referred to the fact that it will be hard to recruit warriors, getting them from supply to board, as it takes a whole action for only one warrior, that was my concern
Appreciate you sticking around for further discussion! We gotta look at the "sacrifice" and "outcompete" actions here.
The action "sacrifice" let's you place a Generator in a clearing without one, by replacing a warrior there with a token. That replaced warrior permanently goes into mutations. Lore wise- they are commiting their life to generating electricity for your syndicate.
When you get to outcompete, the text reads "take actions up to WARRIORS in mutations plus one".
So to fuel your action economy, you have to balance your board presence / warrior supply with your action economy. (Not to mention make your way to an eligible clearing to sacrifice). They're already limited here so in my testing it's a weighty decision, similar to officers with the WA.
On my game they ended up with five generators on the board, so 5 warriors in mutations. Meaning 6 actions to select from at outcompete, which is needed to hunt for those mutations!
Thanks for staying curious about these curious fellows! You're right, one action for one warrior is expensive! I though venomous spurs would make the one warrior tougher to kill, but there's a balance here to be struck. I'll re-evaluate!
That kind of action economy is not unheard of, but needs some sort of counterplay. In the WA, when their building gets destroyed, they lose half their officers and have to build back up. Maybe make it so that when a generator is destroyed, you lose that warrior from your pool? When you have the heavy hitting mutation, I don’t think a low warrior count will hurt you as badly (unless you were to reduce total warriors to like 12 or less), so there needs to be some way to slow down your 6 actions per turn, some counter play. Having more actions means you have less warriors to defend generators, so they will be easier to destroy, so you will have less actions, but then you build up again.
Great idea on when you lose a generator, since lore wise that platy-pal is no longer powering anything! I might add that in the next edition, Just wanted it to be permanent to fit with the theme of them being permanently sacrificed. I still wanna see if their punishment mechanic of not having the mutant/ not being able to cycle mutations is enough to hurt em. That way they're hurt without hitting action economy (just be to special like that 😆), might not pan out - but wanna test it
Appreciate all the writeups and helping me out here! I had just wanted to highlight a mechanic I'd tried to cook up 😆. Hope folks return the favour of giving your shrikes attention too!
Just as weird as I'd expect a platypus faction to be!
Glad that they delivered on that front 😆
Here's a link to the FULL PNP. I'm so sorry it's not there in the downloads section, dunno what happened!
Syndicate PNP
Ack! Why are so many files missing??? Can I try to add them?
Most of the PNP files are missing somehow! I'll try to add them, but for now please look at the components in the "screenshots" tab. Sorry for the issue :(