Fair Play » Business Solutions

Playtesting, Moving Forward

Jason — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 12:32:11 +0000

I had a playtest-fest yesterday; Clinton did a splenic bypass. I’d been at a creative impasse with Business Solutions in particular and that’s over now. The thing I’m doing with Medical Hospital – the tactile, player-skill-equals-character-success thing – turns out to be just the ticket for Business Solutions as well. Clinton pointed this out and I’m so happy about it. We played enough alpha Medical Hospital for me to proceed with confidence and man, Business Solutions is pretty much done. I just need to run a few full games, get it out there for some blind testing, and that’s that. A pretty exciting development! I’m not sure how long it’ll take to come together but I bet it’ll be ready in the early fall. Information design will be a big challenge and I want to get that just right – the game relies on stuff you need to reference more or less constantly, and I’m not yet sure how to present those things in the clearest possible way. It’ll fall into place, I’m sure. Maybe the list of photocopier malfunctions goes on the back of the character sheet or something. Thanks to Joel, Clinton, and Mike for their help and ideas!

Back from Camp Nerdly 2

Jason — Mon, 12 May 2008 12:40:51 +0000

Wow, that was fun and exhausting. Here’s one cool thing. And here’s The Upgrade!

Morale Check!

Jason — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 12:09:12 +0000

Via Paul Czege, the true origins of Business Solutions.

Business Solutions Forms

Jason — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 20:21:33 +0000

Here are the latest versions of the Business Solutions forms – the three different player sheets, the “battle mat”, and the service call log. You don’t really need those last two, but they are kinda fun. The call log makes an excellent prop because if you use it, there’s always a little scene where the client is asked to sign off on the work that’s been done. The battle mat is just a place to organize community cards. I wanted the player sheets to look sort of corporate and poorly put together, but also functional. That’s an information design challenge and I’m not sure how I did yet. I think they drifted away from hellish and toward functional, but that’s OK. They will all get branded with a skeevy logo eventually, and that will help.

Business Solutions Playtesting

Jason — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 16:03:19 +0000

I got a chance to playtest Business Solutions on Saturday with my friends Joel (the original Tom Cougar – Unpleasant Creep / Lust from an earlier game, who made it into the examples of play) and Tom (who I’d never met in person but now have). It went OK. We played using the Melodramatic flavor, which is the first time that’s been tried out, and it has huge potential. I think we just skirted the edges of how fun it could be – Joel played Mysterious Heir / Admiration and I played Seductive Outsider / Lust, which has a hysterical combo. He’d “died” in a sailboat accident but was back – to wrest Business Solutions from his father! Tom’s guy (Dangerous Old Timer / Deceit) knew, of course, but I got it out of him, and my urge to expose the prodigal son turned into a different sort of urge as I fell head over heels for the big lug. All while we were fixing broken PCB photogates and blurry copies. There’s still an important piece that doesn’t work right – the way players earn a bonus – but it’s fixable. Otherwise I’m really happy with the drastically pared-down card handling.