The first game I played was just with Mike in a two player mode. This was the first time i've played against someone else in two player and while it was fun, it was also a little autonomous. I will test out this mode more in the future but I am not sure if there is enough going on with only one other person to make it really great.
The next night we had a 5 player game in which I sat out and moderated. This game was played with the rules as they are stated in the blog post underneath this and it was very interesting to watch. The first issue that cropped up was the stacks of dice getting precariously tall. This has come up in pretty much every game that has been played so far, one or two stacks would get 5 or 6 dice on them. The second issue was the game needing a tie breaker condition since we had a tie. After discussion these are the two solutions we came up with for the moment:
Create a maximum dice stacking ceiling height. We discussed having it be at various heights and generally agreed that three high makes the most sense for the first couple tests. 4 high starts to get shaky, and 2 high just seems too short.
The tie breaker is the second longest strain.
This 5 player game ended looking like this:
This morning we played one three player game using the changes I mentioned above. There were some interesting strategy options that come out of having a dice max height, one in particular being placing dice on top of your own. Since you can not place a 4th die on top of a stack, the third die is a very secure position. The only way to lose a third stack die is to have it doubled off which happens much less then simply being able to cover it up. I really liked this interaction, it leaves the player with more decisions of varying risk. Do you cover an opponents level 1 die and increase your Strain (but leave it vulnerable to someone stacking a third on top and having that be very secure) or do you place a third level die on top of your second level die to better secure that position?
Having a max height also forced more sprawling which was not only more stable but also interesting because it creates more options to play with.
This game ended with Robyn winning (clear) with a tie breaker, all three of us had a largest strain of 6!
Every single game i've played has been very close, usually someone gets beaten back and somehow rebounds and is at least a threat to win by the end. The 5 player game took about an hour to play through, though there was some discussion and rule clarification in the middle. All told I am VERY happy with how this is progressing and look forward to getting some plays in at game nights back in the Bay Area.
Awesome game, dude.
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