I think that was the final play test. 🙂
I GMed for five people on Sunday. We played using the new white board opposite. Everyone was able to log into Owlbear Rodeo on their computers with very few issues. I created a Group on Line that allowed all six of us to participate in a video call using our phones and tablets.
This setup worked really well. Everyone had a lot of fun. They loved the questions I’d created and, overall, the feedback was really positive.
The only negative feedback was that the game took over 3.5 hours. 🙂 And, with that many tokens on the board, it was sometimes difficult to see the square icon.
That last complaint was easily fixed by making the tokens smaller and asking the players to zoom in on their screens.
The first complaint, well, that was totally my fault. I miscalculated the number of rounds it would take to complete the game. And probably also the amount of time each turn would take.
My play testers gave me a number of suggestions, most of which boiled down to removing anything from 1/3 to 1/2 of the squares. They figured this would make the game quicker and make the icons easier to see.
I really didn’t want to go that route. A game that’s too short would feel… anticlimactic. I decided to make a few tweaks to the rules instead.
You can check out the new rules for yourselves. The two biggest changes are the size and number of dice rolled for basic movement, and the fact that players can now win extra movements. This all should make the game move a lot quicker without stripping away the fun of getting around the board and practicing your English by answering a variety of questions.
We trialed these new movement rules towards the end of the play test on the weekend and they worked wonderfully.
And a new set of rules.
So, having finished play testing, I’ve now decided to make the game available for sale.
You can pick up a copy of the complete game – board and question cards – over on the new Product Page. You can also get the cards separately. At the moment all of these are digital files but I’m planning on making physical sets of the cards available in the near future.
