Playtesting went really well last night! In fact, it went much better that I expected!
In the first game the players did not purchase any relics and few intercession/sin cards. This concerned me, so in the second game I dropped the cost of these cards by 1 holy/unholy point. However, this created a situation where a player could run away with the game once they had control of all three souls in play (which seems to be a hard thing to do) and could purchase relics every turn while the other player was essentially shut out.
We changed the cost back for these card in the third game and the balance was excellent. The players were not purchasing relic and sin/intercession cards in the first game simply because they did not understand the advantages of doing so. And there are clearly advantages.
No one purchased single victory point cards, but the last game was determined by a single point, so if just two victory point cards were purchased the outcome would have been different. I think further playtesting will reveal that these cards can be an important element for the game.
Being able to draw a free intercession/sin card with two pair made for a really exciting and interesting dynamic and a few times a player had more than one hand with two pairs in a row on the same turn! This never created a runaway leader situation though, and to the contrary, it seems to be a path for getting out of a sticky situation by working to build a hand of two pairs.
Angel/devil cards are more difficult to gain then I thought they would be, but I'm not convinced this is a bad thing. They should be the most difficult thing to earn and when a player is able to earn one it brings with it a nice sense of accomplishment.
Order of play will be important, so I will need to include action order hint cards.
We also got a good sense of which special abilities were good and which were not so good, so I will be changing some of the card abilities for cards that did not make the grade, like Selaphiel's Thurible and a few others.
Now that I have a better sense of how gameplay actually unfolds, I can tweak card abilities to really accentuate the gameplay.
I am very excited about Battle For Souls after last night!
In the first game the players did not purchase any relics and few intercession/sin cards. This concerned me, so in the second game I dropped the cost of these cards by 1 holy/unholy point. However, this created a situation where a player could run away with the game once they had control of all three souls in play (which seems to be a hard thing to do) and could purchase relics every turn while the other player was essentially shut out.
We changed the cost back for these card in the third game and the balance was excellent. The players were not purchasing relic and sin/intercession cards in the first game simply because they did not understand the advantages of doing so. And there are clearly advantages.
No one purchased single victory point cards, but the last game was determined by a single point, so if just two victory point cards were purchased the outcome would have been different. I think further playtesting will reveal that these cards can be an important element for the game.
Being able to draw a free intercession/sin card with two pair made for a really exciting and interesting dynamic and a few times a player had more than one hand with two pairs in a row on the same turn! This never created a runaway leader situation though, and to the contrary, it seems to be a path for getting out of a sticky situation by working to build a hand of two pairs.
Angel/devil cards are more difficult to gain then I thought they would be, but I'm not convinced this is a bad thing. They should be the most difficult thing to earn and when a player is able to earn one it brings with it a nice sense of accomplishment.
Order of play will be important, so I will need to include action order hint cards.
We also got a good sense of which special abilities were good and which were not so good, so I will be changing some of the card abilities for cards that did not make the grade, like Selaphiel's Thurible and a few others.
Now that I have a better sense of how gameplay actually unfolds, I can tweak card abilities to really accentuate the gameplay.
I am very excited about Battle For Souls after last night!
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