[Stacked] Wish fulfillment
This post is part of a designer diary series about my latest game design, Stacked. Check out my first post if you want to start from the beginning.
Player feedback can be both be invaluable but also dangerous. They’ll often have ideas for actions they want to be able to do. As a designer I typically have two possible reactions depending on the idea:
- Sometimes the idea makes the game more complex or is contrary to the spirit or goals of the game. Playtesters are great at sniffing out problems in the game, but players often jump to offer solutions to address problems they haven’t fully communicated. It’s usually a designer’s job to create the solutions and during a playtest, the designer often has to dig deeper to understand what the problem is.
- Other times the idea is just something players want to naturally do but can’t because the rules don’t allow it. Often these ideas are intuitive to players and when implemented the game either flows easier or plays into their desires.
Luckily, Stacked is a game that can support a lot of table talk, which is valuable feedback around what people are thinking. Stacked has an element of push your luck and players sometimes will comment on whether they would have pushed harder on someone else’s turn, especially since all the cards are revealed and you get to see exactly what you missed out on.
So I figured, rather than wishing you could have pushed deeper on their turn, what if you could? Enter the Swooping mechanic. Players each have a Swooping Token and can spend it to continue someone else’s turn as if it were their own. It’s the ultimate way to say, “I think I can play your turn better than you.” However, just like with a normal turn, there’s risk you may end up with cards that give you negative points.
After introducing Swooping, the feedback I received was that people wished they could get their Swooping Token back somehow. With 1 Swooping Token players felt hesitant to use their one and only token. With 2 tokens there was too much swooping (and players still wanted ways to get the token back).
In the end what worked best was if players gave the Swooping Token to the player they are swooping and making the tokens worth 2 points at the end of the game. This amplified the risk associated with swooping since you not only risk getting bad cards but also are giving points to other players. However, the prospect of getting 2 extra cards still pushed players to swoop if they saw an opportunity.
My design philosophy is if there’s something a player wants to do, you have to first ask yourself, why not? The majority of the time there’s a very good reason for balance reasons why players can’t do a particular action. But if you are able to allow players to do what they want, it can result in a more satisfying and more intuitive game design.
If you are able to allow players to do what they want, it can result in a more satisfying and more intuitive game design.
With the latest set of design changes, a new theme began to emerge prominently: Every choice has risk. Yes, you can swoop but you might get bad cards and are giving away points. Yes, you can spread the bad stuff across the pile or you can save it for the final 2 cards. Yes, you can go for stars but if you get 5 of them you bust. This became another guiding principle for game design decisions moving forward.
In addition to playing on what players wanted to do anyways, the swooping mechanic also incidentally solved another problem. The best solutions often tackle multiple problems. In this case, for a 4 or 5 player game, there’s not normally any way you can interact with the player further across the table from you. Now with swooping, someone 2 spots away from you can be revealing from your pile. If you’re very clever, the pile you are stacking isn’t just for the next player but also for the next next player. It adds a layer of depth and replayability to the game when you have to consider the possibility of swooping.
In my next post, I’ll my journey in streamlining the game.
