Pacing and Endgame
I’m working on a card game called Open Boat, a project that’s been in the works on and off since 2005. One thing that’s always been a problem is ending the game - it has to have a finite resolution, or the possibility of one, and I’ve mostly been leaving that in the hands of players whose characters die to give them something fun to do. A weekend stuffed with playtests (thanks Steve, Robo, Joel, Anmar, Dan, and Goaty) helped to arrive at a different conclusion:
Now the event cards (one draw per turn/game day) have between zero and three little boat symbols on them. You lay these out as you go, and when you get ten (or 12, or whatever is optimal, don’t know yet), your little band of castaways on the high seas is saved. What do dead people do to stay engaged? They each get to draw an event card and decide, as a group, which will be played that day. So they can, if they want, stretch out the game by playing events without endgame mojo. Of course the most devilish and punishing cards have lots of endgame mojo, and the nice helpful ones have none. I’m pretty stoked. I think I also fixed the tiller problem. Full speed ahead!