Combos! Card combinations is what I've been working on in the latest iteration of Blocaganda. But why add combos?
Progression
People enjoy playing games with a sense of progression, whether they are building up an engine or tearing one down. Progression should result in the way the game is played changing ever so slightly, keeping it interesting from beginning to end.
Prior to Perth Games Festival last year, other than collecting the policies (cards) and their associated votes, there was no sense of progression within the game. Players did the same thing from their first turn to their last. Thanks to one of my game designer friends, who helped to playtest the game with some new people, the idea of card combinations providing unique abilities was raised.
Prior to Perth Games Festival last year, other than collecting the policies (cards) and their associated votes, there was no sense of progression within the game. Players did the same thing from their first turn to their last. Thanks to one of my game designer friends, who helped to playtest the game with some new people, the idea of card combinations providing unique abilities was raised.
Positive and Negative Combos
The first iteration of combos had each card producing combos with one of two other cards. Half of these combos were positive and the other half negative. The combos would last for the remainder of the game and it was expected that by the end, both players would have a number of positive and negative combos to work with.
This didn't happen. In all but two of the games I played, no one ended up with a negative combo (where I deliberately chose to take the negative to see what happened), and in the rest positive combos were also rare. Therefore, the progression I wanted wasn't there and the negative combos only limited the player's choice of cards, without adding anything to the game.
In addition, when a player got a positive combo, the ability associated with that combo meant that they would race ahead of the other player, denying them the ability to score and making the game very one-sided.
This didn't happen. In all but two of the games I played, no one ended up with a negative combo (where I deliberately chose to take the negative to see what happened), and in the rest positive combos were also rare. Therefore, the progression I wanted wasn't there and the negative combos only limited the player's choice of cards, without adding anything to the game.
In addition, when a player got a positive combo, the ability associated with that combo meant that they would race ahead of the other player, denying them the ability to score and making the game very one-sided.
Positive Only Single Use Combos
Now, the current iteration of combos uses only positive combos, but with some changes.
- Each card has its own associated ability. (e.g. Scoring Health allows the player to places tiles in spaces diagonally adjacent to their agent.)
- When a policy is scored, the player collects an ability token and places it on their scored card.
- To use the ability, the player must also have one of the other cards listed. (e.g. To use the Health policy ability, the player must also have scored either Education or Tourism.)
- The player must announce they are using an ability before their movement phase and upon using the ability, discard two of their ability tokens, one from the policy associated with the ability and one from the other card listed. (e.g. The player has scored both the Health and Education policies. They choose to use the Health policy ability on their next turn, discarding the ability tokens from both their Health and Education policies. The player may no longer use the Health or Education ability in this game.)
Playtesting
With this combination structure implemented into the game, it's now up to playtesting to gather feedback and see how well it works to provide a sense of progression within the game.
If you'd like to try it out, come along to Good Games Cannington (Perth, WA) at 7pm on Thursday evenings for Game Foundry, our local, weekly playtesting event.
If you'd like to try it out, come along to Good Games Cannington (Perth, WA) at 7pm on Thursday evenings for Game Foundry, our local, weekly playtesting event.