Just got finished play testing the new versions of Eikaiwa Master.
Best version so far
Naturally, the 2.5 version is the winner for on-line play for all the reasons I suspected. Version 2.0 would work as an actual table top game if I added a rule about having to collect points before attempting the Boss Question. That should deal with the issue of being able to reach the goal in four to six rolls.
The questions went over great. They inspired some really good conversations which is the whole goal of this game.
So, that’s the actual game. It’s doing well. I actually went ahead and made up a fifth set of cards that will replace the ‘Random Card’ and become the ‘Wild Card’ deck. These are questions that are a little all over the place. Some are easier, some are quite challenging, they’re a little more ‘quiz-zy’ in style. So they should make for good boss questions. 🙂
VTTs and Video Conferencing Apps
That brings us to the VTTs and the different options for getting some audio visual connections.
Roll20 was a pain for my play testers to get into. They had to sign up for an account, and, once they figured that out, they were forced to do an orientation tutorial before they could enter the game. We actually spent more time just getting them both onto the game screen than we did playing the game.
The audio visual aspect of Roll20, which was one of the main reasons for choosing it for this game, was spotty. That might have been connection issues with my players who don’t have the best wi-fi connection.
Sizing the game board was an issue for them as well. And it took a few explanations before they were able to figure out how to roll dice. We weren’t using 3D dice as that had proven problematical when I was setting up the board and doing prelim tests.
Roll20’s chat feature was useful for a couple of aspects of the game. One of the sets of questions requires that only one person know the question while the other players try to guess the topic. As far as I know, Owlbear Rodeo doesn’t have that chat feature. It also doesn’t have the audio visual component. But that means that we could play using Zoom or Google Meet or one of the other on-line video conferencing apps and use the features in those that allow for private messages.
Zoom, while great, has changed its policies and no longer allows hour long calls on the free version. So having more than one person on the call, or having a game that runs longer than 40 minutes, means dropping the call at least once and then reconnecting. Or paying for the Pro version.
I think for this new version of the game, Owlbear Rodeo provides the better system. We’ll just have to have a work around for the video calls. Line perhaps. If everyone is using Line on their phones and Owlbear on the computer, that’ll work just fine.
Anyway, there’ll be more testing done in the following days and weeks to see which is the most user-friendly, and the least expensive, interface.
So… more updates to follow.
