gistfile1.txt

Before the Earth Explodes
Playtesting Notes

Part 1: Rulebook

Understanding the order of Actions: It took us a couple reads of the rulebook to understand the Actions on Page 2 fit in with the Phase 1 and Phase 2.

Recommendations:

* The choice of A, B, C or D is the core of the game. Show the Action panel with the effects first.

* Listing the selection of A, B, C or D as Phase 1 of a turn.

* Phase 1 is listed with "Gain Ship Cards" (an effect of an Action), while Phase 2 is listed as "Perform Actions". Playtester instinct was always that playing A, B, C or D was "Performing an Action". 

* The text "Gain Ship Cards/Assign Damage/Cancel Actions" makes it sound like Gaining Ship Cards would happen before Cancelling, when our interperation of the rules is that D cancels A, so no Ship cards are gained.

* Remembering Cancellation in mind with the above took extra tracking. A cancel token would be convenient.

* Recommendation: Marking A, B, C, D as "Strategy Cards" seperates applying their Effect from playing the card.
Phase 1: Choose Strategy.
Phase 2: Assign "Cancel" (or Countered, Foiled.. Exploded?) token to indicate when a player lost the Strategy selection.
 
-- A player with the Cancel token skips the remaining Phases --

Phase 3: Actions. Remaining Player(s) apply the Effect of their Strategy in alphabetical order of their chosen Strategy. In case of a tie, see Tiebreaking section. Players can play Planet cards before (or after? see next *) effect occurs.
Phase 4: Colonize: ...
Phase 5: Maintenance ...

Ship Abilities: ...
Planet Abilities ...

* It was unclear if you could play Planet cards immediately after acquisition or if that phase immediately ended upon Planet acquisition.

Part 2: Reading Cards

* Occupy on C: Occupy and Colonize mean the same thing. It wasn't clear that C lets you pay 2 resources *less* when taking a planet in the Colonize phase. 1 Playtester initially thought you had to play C to take a Planet.

* The trading of 1 resource type for another doesn't specify if the resource traded is from the Quarries, the Bag or the other Player.

* Suggestion: A + or up arrow symbol next to things you gain eg. Planets that gain you a technology, to make it clearer the effect of the card "This gives you more of _"

Part 3: Strategy Impressions

Overall the game was interesting and fun. We enjoyed the challenge of getting into the psychological groove of out-guessing your opponent.

10 resource to win seemed unfair to 3 playtesters - 1 from their opponent and in another game, both players thought it was unfair. In both cases it ended up still being a close game. We liked how the card emphasizes the value of D contrasted against countering your opponent or spending resources to get a useful Planet.

Racing for Damage vs Technology felt right. Playtesters liked being able to switch between and the ability to come back with successive Cancel/Counters felt right.

The Nihilism card never got drawn. On paper it seems unfitting as it completely reverses 1 strategy (Damage your opponent) making it useless or even dangerous to win on Damage. Also completely counters and weakens the "Win with only 6 damage". I would have interpreted this as Nihlism goes into effect at 6 damage. Doesn't seem to fit into the game, but I think there's potential for a card that *modifies* another player's win condition without completely destroying it. eg. checking resource cube counts.

Biggest flaw: Several playtesters felt you could play Randomly. If you play Randomly, then no matter how strategic your opponent plays they are effectively playing Randomly. There doesn't seem to be an easy solution to this but I don't think it should stop you from releasing.

* Possible solution is to take advice from Sirlin.net's Yomi and make "Rock" worth more. Eg. You need only 5 tech points to win instead of 7 by default, emphasizing the strength of Scout. Random play could be countered by playing Mine more often. (This math logic might be flawed.. please consider the impact of randomness. It's possible you could just ignore it and ship the game without bothering about it. We still had fun and probably most buyers would too.)

* Another possible solution: The "Cancel (token)" effect only prevents buying of a planet with a certain one, two or three choices. At least one choice can be countered, its effect doesn't apply *but* you can still buy a planet. Colonize seems like a thematic choice.

* Possibly more interesting weighting could come from counting something sucessively.. 2 Scouts in a row gives an extra Ship, etc.

Part 5: Misc notes on Resource Types

* Do resource cubes have any correlation with the kinds of planets they can buy? They felt very random, unstrategizble on which quarry take from. Usually was reactive - take the one with the most, or the one that would allow an immediate purchase. Not terrible but feels lacking in depth. 

* Recommendation: Black planets tend to give you damage, grey planets tend to give you an extra action (like mine or take a ship), whites tend to ___. Planets with both could do either color's main effect or something different to give variety.

Conclusion:

We like the game. Good work. Increasing the readability of rulebook & cards are the main issues we found. The overal guessing & outguessing was fun. Please add me to your Kickstarter list, I will be buying a copy.