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Hi folks!

I created a one-page TTRPG based on multi-leveling marketing schemes. One GM takes on the role of The Company (and narrator, as is custom) against 1-4 player Recruits, each with their own curated hand of standard playing cards. A simple 'highest card wins' mechanic drives the developing story as players improve their hands or try to rectify 'failures'. It's a narrative-driven one-shot game influenced by the works of Grant Howitt.

Free to download, though donations are appreciated.

Check it out here: Hey Hun!

Thanks!

Below, a screenshot of the plot beat pyramid.

Hiya!

My twitter handles is @oneirotourist. I'm not incredibly active on it, but do post game-related things from time to time. My main focus lately has been custom puzzle experiences (like at-home escape rooms) when I have the free time. Give me a follow and I'll do the same!

Funny thing. I read quite a bit of long form journalism about random stuff. This article about a fight to save Scotland's kelp forest was in my docket today. 

www.hakaimagazine.com/features/scotlands-seaweed-showdown/

Could be an inspiration for a second draft of the game? 

It’s quite remarkable what a single sheet of rules provided as a game experience. Of all the games on offer, this was our favorite. And, possibly related, the easiest to get into.

We’ll start with our critiques:

We played on Hell Mode the first go round because we triggered newly revealed cards if they matched other continents on the board. Not sure if this needs a clarification or if that was just us not paying close enough attention.

We also found ourselves losing track of turning the die counter quite often. Since a turn is so fast, it’s easy to forget this step. I think we erred on the side of caution multiple times and cheated ourselves out of a turn here and there. Would a simple tracker be better? Play a card, push a token down/around a track?

Some of the verbiage felt wonky. If a player reveals a plot card (the die counter goes to 0), are they still the active player if a plot card refers to this? Or is it the player who is about to play a card? This is sort of a limbo on certain plot card trigger effects.

When “every player draws one card”, the active player gets kind of a bum deal. Does this mean they draw beyond the hand limit of 4 or do they just draw a card and ignore the ‘end turn’ step? Only confusion is certain plot cards mention being able to have more than 4 cards and others don’t.

Finally, and this may just be us, but we never used a single ability.

The good:

The sense of danger and escalation is spot on. Doctor discord feels really threatening!

The rewards for completing plot cards felt good. Often we found ourselves discussing the benefits of those on the table, sometimes making risky moves to make something ‘better’ happen. Were it not for social distancing, we would have been high-fiving each other. A lot.

The injure / kill piles are a fantastic mechanism. However, are we allowed to look at this stacks during the game? We saw it as looking at our “agents’ files” so we used that information to help us along. If this is part of the mechanism, include a clarification of whether or not players can look through their dead or injured.

Very little to print and cut. And the fact that it’s played with a standard deck of cards (something most folks have laying around) is amazing. If folks are familiar with poker terminology, this game is a snap to learn. Maybe think about including clarifications on all plot cards (some have it) just to ensure your player base is as broad as it can be.

In short, we wanted to play this again right away, even after winning our second (non-Hell-Mode) play. It’s really great!

Cheers!

I'm fascinated by this concept. I've played exquisite corpse games before and had fun, but this adds a super interesting emotional level I haven't seen before.

However, the tone poem that is your rule-set made the game impenetrable for us. We spent a few hours trying to figure it out, but couldn't quite crack it.

To reach a broader audience (which I feel like it could!), consider writing out a more pointed turn structure. I have a feeling the concept is simple, but it's obfuscated right now.

Cheers!

First off, the theme is adorable. Genius move to have the consequence of losing being a bad sunburn. Perfect for your target age range. After playing, I couldn't stop talking about what a production version of this would look like. HABA would have a field day kitting this out with adorable wooden bits!

In reading your incredibly clear rules, we weren't sure if there was much to this. But, hoo boy, we were wrong. This little game is surprisingly tactical! We won, but on literally the last action of the game. And after a team discussion of how to proceed with the final round. 

The amount of components is a big ask for a print-and-play and it makes the game a little fiddly. We wondered if the board was made of randomly organized tiles and you only have to place cubes on space marked with hippo colors. The special ability cubes could be printed on the tiles themselves. It's a possibility.

But if folks have enough bits to scatter on the table, it's pretty rewarding. Each color cube having a specific rule is great. One addition to your next draft would be a clear player aid to lay out what each color does.

It also forces team collaboration. As with any co-op, quarterbacking will no doubt happen with this, but that's on them, not you as a designer. 

Our big question as a two-player team: must you always play with all four hippos? We did and it wasn't too difficult to keep focused, but I feel like your next edit (because this is so solid) could acknowledge scaling. It's my biggest fear and has me in cold sweats during design so I wish you luck there.

All in all, we thought this was super cute, surprisingly complex, and kind of a winner. 

Cheers!

This game shares DNA with Pandemic, yes, but I think a bit of the Forbidden series (Island, Desert, Sky). Oddly, in our playtest, this familiarity made it super simple for me (a veteran of those games) and incredibly easy to pick up for my co-designer (who'd never played anything like it). I guess it's a tested formula! However, your theme and goals are different enough to set it apart from the aforementioned. 

I think the theme is cute and appropriate for the target age you set. The setting, general conceit, and complexity feels perfect for that 8+ demo. Bonus points for it being unique! 

But I wonder if trash could enter the board in a different, more thematic way. The random die roll does work 100%, but it's not very dynamic. Think of Pandemic's epidemic deck or Forbidden Island's location cards and how they reshuffle. Players, at a certain point, know what's in there - it's up to them to determine what's most precious at the time because they can't save it all. There may be a way to imitate that feeling without flat out stealing the idea.

The upgrades felt good. Like real good. If you can tie that further into the theme, all the better. I'm not sure how I feel about the "6 upgrades per player" being a win condition, though. The escalation of cost is perfect, but after a few rounds, we won handily on the second hardest difficulty. (I realize dice luck is part of this.) 

To prevent this, can the bins get full? As in each bin can only be used a certain number of times? We played with two players and found it fairly easy to delineate sections. I'd imagine this is only easier with four players. We didn't find a use for the trade action with two and I can't see a use for it with four players, whereas in those familiar co-ops trading sometimes because incredibly necessary. Are there different types of a trash as a result? Is that too close to the aforementioned games?

The mud spots felt arbitrary. Where I enjoy that they escalate the endgame difficulty, I wanted more from them. (Or less? I can't decide.) Is it harder to move through them? Are they created in a different way? Do they have a different effect on trash? Thematic, trash in a mud puddle would be laden with water and thus heavier so more difficult to carry, right? Just spit-balling, but you might be able to turn that into something cooler.

In future drafts, I think the roll-and-write element could disappear entirely. It works for now, but since the game is so easy to set-up and the gameplay is breezy, it might not be necessary. 

Solid work! Cheers!

There's a lot to love about this. First, I have to applaud your ability to get across what could have been a complicated set of concepts so clearly. The numbering of the hexes compared to the deck allowed this game to play like a breeze. 

The rules were about as clear as they could ever be. I never once questioned what a turn looked like or what our goal was at any moment. It's super simple. It's the player decisions that are difficult. The balance we all want in a game.

However, we think we might have played a little wrong. Were the ToRK decks supposed to be fully visible? I understand that seeing what type of damage you might receive before moving is important, but what about the cards underneath when you "change ToRK"? Are those visible as well? Either way, we did find ourselves having to make difficult decisions toward the end which is what I want in a co-op. I straight up had to sacrifice myself to allow my teammate to win. Great!

I'm envious of your player boards. A little Betrayal at House on the Hill, but the minimal artwork is fun and an easy reminder of danger and consequence. And you made sliders in a print-and-play? :: applause ::

We had a good time with it, but feel there could be more of a reward (or consequence?) to battling mutants. Often one of us would make a decision to stay still to hopefully get equipment, but more importantly to Change ToRK for the other player (excellent). But when we drew a mutant, it was just sort of like "eh, alright, he's dead." Not sure what the solution is there, but we wanted more from the interaction.

We also loved the mutations. Sliding toward death in these types of games is never fun, but you gave us an incentive to go that route! They're weird, some are funny, and they're all beneficial. We did hit a point where, because of our mutations, one of us couldn't move at all. Is it too complicated to allow for healing (see: reward from mutants)?

The puzzle of it is satisfying and tricky. It feels like you put a lot of thought behind what the equipment does as far as understanding your own game's mechanics. (Though the ToRK-ulator card baffled us - what does it do?) Same goes for the weird world setting. It's unique, strange, and oddly funny.

I'm curious to see what a next draft looks like!

Cheers!

[A little precursor: the document was a beast to print. I use Illustrator, which is overpriced if you're only using it for game prototypes so I wouldn't suggest it. But I believe free software like Gimp offers excellent and easily learned solutions to card layout, design, and output.]

We had a little trouble with this one. After a third read of the rules, we understood what needed to be done. However, the flip-flop of "roles" confused gameplay. The way we understand it is only one player gets a true turn per round; the starting player simply applies negative effects to a kelp set in secret.

This needs a streamlining edit. A little anecdote: my fifth or sixth game design was a worker placement game set in high school. In the beginning, players could collect friends, attend class, go to study hall, be a delinquent, buy special items to put in their locker, have an after-school job, blah blah blah. It was too much. And it turned out there was only one way to play: perfunctory. Decisions were mandated by the game, not the player. I sat with it one day and asked myself, "Do players need money?" This was huge. I eliminated that currency and the game smoothed out tremendously.

So what does this mean for your game? It feels right now like there are a lot of "if this doesn't happen, then this" conditions. The game almost plays itself. Player decisions don't feel as rewarding as they should. For example, the bit about "if a playable card doesn't appear, keep drawing until one does" feels arbitrary. And I think that's because you've envisioned a way this game plays in your head. (Believe, I've been there and it's tough to break.) Give players more freedom.

Are the kelp forests already present and the players must fight to save them as they degrade? Drawing them from the deck to build them doesn't feel rewarding, it feels lucky. The events, however, feel almost as they should - bad stuff that happens seemingly at random to set players back. This is good, but shouldn't be a player's turn.

The strict "level 1 must come before level 2 must come before level 3" element was a bit underwhelming. Are there other ways cards can play to the table? We enjoyed the idea that there were costs to more powerful cards (gull needing to eat a crab). There's tough decision making inherent there. Consider exploring that.

For a future draft, consider making player reference for the roles (a week to build a game is nuts, right!?). It's slightly confusing that one player must be the sea otter, but sea otters are also cards in the deck. We either didn't use our powers or forgot we had them as a result.

I know the above might seem like a dump, but this game is a draft! You're getting ideas out there! Inside this draft there are genuinely interesting ideas. Explore them more. Straight up steal from games you think are similar for your next draft. Adjust from there. And repeat. You'll no doubt surprise yourself with a truly ingenious breakthrough soon enough.

I think your game's message is unique and under-represented. Bonus points for the possibility of cute artwork too! (Sea otters? Come on. Adorable.) I'm confident you know way more about kelp forests than I do, but could man-made damage be brought more to the forefront? Does that drive the great eco-friendly message home more or is that too much? I'm also confident you can take this idea and turn it into something great!

Cheers!

We're a basically 100% unfamiliar with RPG systems (I know...) so this was a bit of a puzzle for us. I'll admit we didn't fully get it to the table because neither of us felt confident enough to take the role of a DM. 

However, I think it's genius to create a system based on a standard deck of playing cards. Really takes the "what die do I use?" and "what's my modifier?" obfuscation out of it. Though it might be a bit of hurdle to apply different qualities to pairs of cards. As this is a work in progress, consider creating a clear player aid to make action selection as simple as possible.

The "rails" system of combat seems like it would add a different type of tactical interest to a fight that I don't think I've seen before. Questioning why a monster is taking an action in slot 8 as opposed to slot 5 feels unique and pretty dang cool.

It's not strictly co-op, but one versus many is co-op adjacent. ;) 

I'm curious to know about the rest of the system. Does action selection such as spells, skill checks, and ... cantrips(?) work on a similar card-based system? Are those things included at all or is it a little more free-form? I applaud anyone looking to create a fresh RPG - it's a lot!

Cheers!

ps. Apologies if you got a bunch of notifications on this, my computer really wanted to send you this comment a million times.

As we are on lockdown and only 2 people, we didn't have an opportunity to play it properly, but I dug into everything  I could.

Your ruleset is clear, concise, and as entertaining as I'm betting the game is! The "Name That Tune" bidding element is fantastic. I could see this getting quite heated in the best way. But I think where that shines is the betting time as currency. A nice addition.

I took a look at the word list, too. Yo. A lot of these are bonkers! Which is great! As others have said, having a common lexicon of inside jokes would 100% add to the humor of the game, but I also think as a team-building or ice-breaker activity it would allow players to stretch their communication and creativity skills. It appears to hit both sweet spots - exploring commonality among players - in a way a lot of these "shared brain" party games often don't.

Best news for you, I think, is this would be the easiest to produce. It might work best as an app and not strictly a tabletop game, but I could see this having legs.

Cheers!

First off, I wouldn't worry about the art style - we thought it was gorgeous! Simple, but really legible as far as the mechanics were concerned. It's a little whimsical for a theme that could slide toward darkness. 

The gameplay is very simple and your rulebook lays out everything exceptionally clear. The only bit that could get lost is how the game begins - each player secretly looking at one face-down research card. This detail is right at the end of set-up. Might be better to have in the gameplay section.

Where the game is quick, we found it a little too quick. Though if you're targeting a younger audience, this might be the perfect length. Depends on your goal! We also felt it was quite easy to determine the true solution (in a two player game), even when one of us (me) has a terrible memory. The fact that the other player's board is visible played more of a part in deduction than our own boards. Have you considered making the lab boards bigger or adding another layer of virus qualities?

As many others have said, this isn't a co-op game, but I think it would really interesting to explore that possibility. Each player adding a prospective tile to a larger central board based on what they know. This may lead to interesting interactions such as "why would they place that there? What are they trying to tell me?" Or whatever you feel. I think the possibility is there!

All in all, the game's table presence is pleasing and the gameplay is tight, but I wouldn't shy away from complicating it.

Well done!

I have all my basic notes, just need to commit them to digestible, coherent thoughts. I'm planning on tomorrow!