This week, we did our first public playtest at Hunt Library on CMU main campus. Unfortunately, it did not go as well as expected. The flat cards’ 90% accuracy was insufficient for playtesting, and caused a lot of frustration for players. It’s hard to gauge enjoyment of the game design itself when the game is being interrupted by misreads of the glyphs. This was a bit of a blow for the team, as we were excited to finally test the new decks.
However, we didn’t let this get us down for long. We made the decision to pivot away from the 90% accurate flat cards, and towards slightly thicker cards, where we could insert the pre-made glyph into the center, instead of trying to print our own version of the glyph. This was successful in making the game much more playable. However, creating these decks required a ton of effort, requiring several hours of work from most of the team. This will not be sustainable for continued prototyping and creating a larger card library.
In the second half of the week, we started preparing for our Halves Presentation. Polishing up the deck balance, adding more visuals, and preparing a slideshow. It was important to make a good impression for the faculty, both during the presentation and the faculty playtest day new Friday.