Beyond the Reach: Playtesting Prep
I’ve got the basic mechanics of the game worked out. It’s time to playtest. Unfortunately, there’s still a lot of stuff up in the air, so this very first round (we’ll call it Round 0) is going to have quite a bit of making it up as we go along. First round will consist of Bridget and myself trying to wade through the game.
To prepare, I’ve been working on the consoles the players will be using. Below, you can see the engineer’s console.
My hope is, when the game is actually going to be made, that these consoles will look like a Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica control panel. For now, they need to be print-friendly, and so they look pretty bare-bones. In addition, those squares for filling in energy will actually be dials you’ll turn to reveal numbers. I think it’ll look really cool, and be very evocative.
Also, I haven’t begun to develop the Captain’s Orders. I need to see how the game plays before I can have a role making changes to the rules.
I’ll be using some Star Wars Starship minis for initial playtests, and the actual ship stats will be identical, just to flesh out the rules. More variation will be added with time.
Once Phase 0 is complete, and I’ve been able to process and change the game, I’ll begin looking for playtesters to work on Phase 1. This phase will introduce more human ships, with aliens further down the road.
I’ve still had people worried about gathering up 10 players (or 12 if you’re using carriers) to play. Again, I’d like to emphasise that 10 isn’t necessary. Will you have a better time with 10? Perhaps. But to gather 10 people, you’ll probably want to play the full game at a Con or a big game day. For smaller groups, you’ll just combine roles together.
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What’s neat is that with a little photoshopping skill people could create their own control sheets in whatever sci-fi style that they want. Or, you could have mechanically identical sets by based on the style for a given alien race.