Sam's Board Game Making Journey Part 3 - Honing and Balancing

Sam's Board Game Making Journey - Honing and Balancing

I thought I'd write about the honing and tweaking of games today as it's essential to make a game Work. Unfortunately it is also the boring bit :)

So let's begin…

What is Honing?

In short, it is chipping away at the marble block before the masterpiece emerges. It is the final strokes of the brush. It is the different between good and great.

Why do we have to hone it when it's so hard?

“we do not choose to do things because they are easy, but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organise and measure the best of our energies and skills. That challenge is one that willing to accept and one we are unwilling to postpone. And one we intend to win and the others too!” JFK

If you don't hone it, it won't be as good as it can be and therefore is it something worthwhile? That is a question for you.

I find it difficult not because of the process but because of the fear that I'll take something out that has the magic, and when you have the magic of an idea that feels so electrifying like lightning in a bottle, you don't want to lose it.

At the moment I'm having this conflict with the game I'm working on “Sealed Orders”, and whenever I've play tested it there's a certain lightning in a bottle I've not quite got my finger on what it is and I'm very much afraid of losing it.

That fear, that terification (not sure if that's a real word, but oh well) is a horrible feeling but one I've been working hard on overcoming.

How have I done it?

I've taken the hard task of removing the unessential actions without removing the flexibility and freedom to do exciting things within the game. Because it is a game about fighting a common foe cooperatively and overcoming the odds to win by using your ingenuity and actions. Working together to beat such odds.

So… I've drawn my plans to break the game and see what utter annihilation looks like - to see how many times the French can hit the Royal Navy before they are defeated.

Fingers crossed this number happens in multiple tests as then, “I do declare”, I will discover the knife edge pedestal that players must sit upon.

To make success and defeat a close game every time.

AND I must do it in time to do a small batch manufacture of my game 50 to 100 copies before UKGE. But I can do this and will, because I must.

Let's see if my plans work and then I will update you all.

How to balance a game?

Play it again and again and again and then… again until it works :) there isn't much alternative. I won't be able to get a fair assessment of it without having done so. I've been recommended by my friend Jake to play an iteration 100 times to do this assessment after I've made changes and then later discover what it looks like in the mid point so I don't have to test from the start each time.

I'm excited and apprehensive to start this, but I know it will be worth it.

Thank you for reading

Sam

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