None of us is as dumb as all of us…
It might be hard to believe but games don’t fall out of a designers head fully formed and ready to go to print. As nice as that would be I imagine the games would be pretty sticky when they hit the table. If anything the elements of a game that make it into the box are a victim of “survivor-ship bias”. Or put in the most simple terms “These are the ideas that failed the least during play testing”. That’s what this weeks post is about, a tiny idea that was working well enough, but was immediately replaced when a play tester misinterpreted a card and accidentally came up with a better idea.
The card in today’s discussion is this one. The “Bugs” Card from our soon to be smash hit title “Cramazon”.
The “Bugs” card in Cramazon seemed simple enough. When the card is revealed every player needs to high five another player and say “Squash It” three times. But one of our play testers missed the high five part of the card and instead just repeatedly smacked the card while it lay on the table and said “Squash It” three times. And while that action was totally not what the card instructed, it actually made logical sense.
What do you do when you see a bug? Scream? Run? Talk to it? Escort it outside your house? Throw it at your sister? You see all of those things makes sense, but never once has someone looked at the person standing next to them and said “Look at that insect! Let’s high five about it!”
So we decided to change the game on the fly (unintentional insect pun) and this is how it played out the next round…
If you’re interested in trying ‘Cramazon’ look for us at GenCon. Send us a message through our Contact Page if you would like to meet up to try our prototypes.