Fertessa Allyse is the designer of Book of Villainy, Wicked and Wise, and more!
Watch the live chat below:
What would you say the core to a game is?
The core of a game is an emotional core that doesn’t change and it keeps you motivated to work on the game. It’s the thing that made you motivated enough to create the initial prototype and it doesn’t usually change over time.
This core can be the feelings that you feel when playing the game and the feelings that you want the players to feel. It can be things like players bantering, tabletop, laughing out loud, etc. You want to think about your audience and the games that they like.
It’s easy to lose the identity of your game as you’re influenced by your playtesters. One way to try to not be influenced by playtesters is to keep notebooks and to write everything down as it’s happening. You should write down things like:
- what players are and are not saying
- the physical reactions that the players are having
- any interesting solutions presented by the players which may or may not work
- criticisms
It’s hard to properly digest all the things that people are saying as they’re saying it. It helps to not react and take all the feedback in. Even if a solution doesn’t seem like a fit, that’s fine, write it down so you can think about it later. An idea that isn’t a fit now might be useful in the future or lead you to a different solution when you look back on your notes.
Once or twice a month, go back through your notebooks. If something catches your eye, read it again.
Fertessa talked about how her process works for her, but you need to find the process that works the best for you.
Other places for inspiration:
- Podcasts (Breaking into Board Games, Board Game Design Lab, this live show)
- Read or listen to audiobooks
Fertessa recommended listening to what they’re saying for 10-15 minutes, then start applying what they’re saying, instead of only listening.
Book of Villainy Progression
- Initial idea was mainly about the outfits that the villains were wearing. It had a Monopoly-ish board but then Fertessa joined BGG and talked about the game, but it ended up getting ripped apart based on the feedback she received.
- The board then went to abstract ovals, then abstract circles, then hundreds of circles.
- She listened to lots of podcasts, joined several monthly meetups, played so many games, and this all changed how she approached Book of Villainy.
- At one point, there was too much choice, the players didn’t know what they were supposed to do. The cards were interesting, theme was there, but it was more complicated than it needed to be.
- This was the point that she started to cut things out. The biggest improvements to Book of Villainy was the result of cutting things. Cutting out things allowed Fertessa to really refine the things that people really enjoyed.
- Fertessa identified that the player movement killed the flow of the game and was able to change that by taking the same board pieces and using them as a rondel instead of allowing the players to move between them as they wished. This resulted in a very different game even though she used the same pieces.
A Different Way to Think about Your Game
- Each piece is a part of a lego structure, so it’s possible to take all the things apart and see what happens.
- You can start from the bottom and rebuild the entire game using the same parts, but just used in a different manner.
How do you know what to cut?
- Having lots of notes was very helpful. Playtesters always had things to say about the movement, so that was a sign that that needed to change. If something is causing a lot of controversy, with half the people loving it and half the people hating it, that’s the point that needs to change.
- Think about the things that you held over multiple iterations. Why did you put this in there in the first place? At some point, you may realize it has no purpose in your current iteration. You can ask yourself; Am I changing this aspect of the game just to justify it being in the current iteration or is it a making a positive impact on the game?
- If you get rid of something, you might break your game, but that’s ok. You can always re-add parts that you’ve taken out. Fertessa has made the greatest strides by taking things out and fixing what’s left.
- It’s usually advisable to make one change at a time, but with the nature of how Fertessa designs, it’s helpful to make bigger changes.
How to Keep the Core when making Radical Changes:
The game core is the emotional and player reactions, plus the theme. The game mechanics aren’t always the core, they can be the tools to get the reactions from the player; they aren’t needed and can be changed.
The goal of game design is to actually create something that is precious, not just something you think is precious.
Playtesting Tips
- Ask players what aspect was the easiest to digest? This pinpoints what the player is looking at when they are first learning the game. If they aren’t looking at the thing you want, it could be a UI issue or something else is more fun than the thing you want the fun thing to be. If players are focusing on the minor thing, you have to figure out how to refocus them.
- Wait until the end of the playtest for feedback, write down observations during. If there’s anything players struggle to remember by the end of the playtest, then it’s not memorable enough to care about.
- When you hear things multiple times, you want to react to it in a knee jerk kind of way, but listen to why. Look more towards solutions that cut things rather than create them.
- If you need help identifying what makes your game unique, ask playtesters how they would recommend it.
What do you do when you’re not sure what the core to your game is?
Think about the inspiration you initially had, explore what makes the game special to you currently. Think about how to make your game something you really love, even if that means that it’s not unique. Games don’t need to be unique if they have a reason to exist.
It’s sometimes really tempting to change course after working on a game for a long time. If you follow all your playtester’s advice, you might end up going in a direction that isn’t the right place for that game. Hold on to the emotional core and the thing that made the game precious to you.
Be willing to take a break from your game, if you need to. If you aren’t enjoying the game as much as you were, you might need to put the game down for a month or two to give yourself time to think. You might also need a break if you’ve been going in circles, if working on the game feels like work, or if you aren’t excited to work on it. If it’s a chore to work on your game or if you’re just randomly doing things and you don’t know if your changes are good or bad, you might also need a break.
Player accessibility tips
- Pay attention to colors of font vs background and always use a solid background. Don’t use a shadow or stroke on the text, as that just emphasizes that the text is hard to read.
- Try to use color blind friendly colors and include shapes as well as colors. Use 2-3 points of reference to identify components in your game. (Points of reference can be colors, shapes, and areas where things are.)
- Make sure that images don’t overwhelm everything and your eye isn’t drawn to one certain part of the image. Make sure the component is balanced, so the eye is equally attracted to different parts.
- Don’t use cursive as it’s never easy to read.
- Use large text, stay away from script, use sans serif style fonts.
Good Convention Practices
- Eat a solid breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Find a good hole in the wall restaurant that’s walking distance from the convention center so you can decompress, eat a solid meal, and be away from the constant din of noise.
- Actually sleep, so even if you go to bed at 2 AM you should try to get at least 7 hours of sleep. If you don’t get enough sleep, you start taking short cuts on what you’re eating and drinking and you’ll end up a lot worse off.
- Take a nice hot shower.
- When you’re in a convention hall, have an escape plan or way to recenter yourself.
- If something bad happens, tell yourself, “This is not a terrible convention, it was just a terrible experience.”
- If you need to, take a call with a friend or with your dog, if you can.
You can find out more about Fertessa here:
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/fertessa
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