Air Sloop Board Game Design Journal Entry 11 – The Game Crafter Prototype

After receiving the first printed prototype from The Game Crafter, Dave discovers new opportunities and challenges with his design.

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The copy of Air Sloop I got from the Game Crafter lasted all but 5 – 6 plays. But in those 5 – 6 plays I got a lot of information and data for myself from my playtesters. Movement is pretty important in a pickup and deliver game. Because of that, I needed to review opportunities for players to get an “edge” in their movement against other players. Getting that additional movement would help them deliver faster and earn more points.

I liked the concept of using the cargo hold as something OTHER than just holding cargo. I enjoyed the simplicity of the storage card in Century Spice Road. I wanted to mimic that but also introduce something that would make it more interesting to hold cargo. That’s when I came up with the idea of setting your cargo up in certain patterns in your cargo hold would give you different movement options.

I decided to augment my Game Crafter prototype to provide players the options to take advantage of this movement based on WHAT cargo was stored in their hold and in what configuration.

Based on how they were setup next to each other, players could move diagonally on the board or move between 2 – 4 extra spaces on their turn.

This was an idea that sounded great in my head; but in play and in practice just made the concept of moving around too onerous for players.