I’ve been working hard on this new version of the game. You can see from the image on the right that I’ve done a re-design on the board. There are similarities to both v1.0 and 2.0. The rings are still there, and the goal is still in the middle, but now there’s only one route to get there.
I was looking at v2.0 and noticed that someone who had a couple of lucky rolls could reach the goal in about four turns. That was way too quick for a game that was supposed to take about 45~60 minutes to play through. The new version requires 19 lucky rolls in a row to make it to the centre, which should extend game play a bit. 🙂
Also, I noticed that when I put the v2.0 board up on Roll20 that having multiple play routes was going to make it difficult to play. The board was too big for players on opposite sides to be able to see both the icons and tokens sized for the board. Zooming in to make things more visible had its issues, too. Moving back and forth between different parts of the board was not a great experience.
Using the chat to roll the dice wasn’t great, either. I can see it being a bit of a nightmare having to explain how that works. The chat also takes up a lot of realestate on the screen, too. There’s a virtual dice box that pops out on the left of the screen, but that would have been nightmare inducing levels of confusing for my play testers. Even using Owlbear Rodeo’s dice box caused some minor confusion. To be honest, my play testers are neither gamers (and had no idea that there were so many types of dice), nor are they particularly good with technology. But that was part of the point behind asking them to take part in the play test.
With v2.5, the size of the board isn’t really an issue because the players will all be following the same route and should be relatively bunched up. There shouldn’t be a need for radical shifts around the board while zoomed in.
That issue with the need to zoom in to see the icons does suggest that maybe I need to do something about them. Make them larger, maybe, so they fill more of the space. Or maybe colour-code them so you don’t need to see the icon clearly, you just need to be able to see what colour it is. I guess that change will have to wait for a v2.55 if I ever get around to making that. We’ll see how the play test of V2.5 goes. 🙂
The size of the board has been having impacts in other ways, too. When I uploaded v2.0 to Roll20 and tried to get the virtual dice to work while zoomed in on the tokens, the board started glitching. I can only assume this was from having to deal with such a large ‘map’ while also dealing with token position and virtual dice.
You’ll notice that there’s extra space over on the left that could be cut. I left it there because that’s where the virtual dice box shows up on both Owlbear Rodeo and Roll20 (the only two VTTs I’ve actually used), and I didn’t want the box to be covering any of the board when players get their first look at it. It also provides a buffer area where the dice-tray can go even when zoomed in. To my spotty recollection, Owlbear Rodeo allows for a floating map that you can move around on the screen. Roll20 doesn’t. Their map is geo-locked to the top left, or, if it isn’t, I haven’t figured out how to unlock it.
Speaking of the differences between VTTs. With v1.0, it was very difficult to keep track of my points and keys system in Owlbear Rodeo. It was possible, but not pretty, and often awkward. I sort of came up with the idea for points because in my fatigue-addled brain, I thought Owlbear had the same token-linked HP tracker as Roll20. That system would have made tracking points, keys, and treasure a breeze in Roll20 which is why I went there to try it out for v2.0.
That treasure hunt system from v1.0 got dropped from v2.0. The questions were difficult enough that having a whole other system that prevented easy access to the centre of the board basically made the game unwinnable without hours of miserable play.
And a revised set of rules, too.
Having removed the need to track any of that stuff from the latest version of the game means that I can go back to Owlbear Rodeo which, so far, has proven to be more robust, and to have better dice rolling. I have to say, though, that I think Roll20 used to have some good visuals for the dice rolling that, I think, might have been cludged up by a recent system update. So maybe that’ll get fixed in a patch. I’ve heard that they’re trying to do a complete system overhaul to make it smoother and more newbie-friendly to use.
It’s a bit of a toss up with VTTs at the moment. I’ve only tried two. Owlbeear was really easy to use but lacked the ability to bring people in with audio or video. That would mean having to run a separate video call at the same time. That’s doable, probably. I mean, there are several video call apps that could be used while also being on the Owlbear Rodeo website. The issue, I suppose, is if people are technically savvy enough to do that.
Roll20 has the clunky chat-based dice rolling, and it was glitching when I was trying to set up the board for a play test. It does have internal video conferencing, but it tries to connect automatically. That’s a little annoying, too. The video-interface windows block off large sections of the ‘table’ unless you minimise them, and then, what’s the point of using their system if I’m just going to shut the video off anyway? Also, I couldn’t figure out how to minimise the video window this time around.
I think the thing to do is investigate some of the other options out there and hope that one of them has both the ease of use and the versatility I’m looking for. I think Owlbear Rodeo was designed to be a true virtual table top, meaning pretty basic, but with all the versatility that basic offers. I mean, It’s a place to lay out a virtual piece of paper, roll some dice, and move some tokens. That is the basics for any table top board or roll-playing game. Roll20 feels like it was designed with a very specific style of RPG in mind. If you’re playing a version of that, it’s got you covered. It doesn’t feel quite as versatile though.
Alright. So I guess that’s my update on the board and my thoughts on the two VTTs I tried it out on.
Oh, right. I had another piece of news I wanted to drop.
I finished writing and printing the question cards for Eikaiwa Master. So I now have four 52-card decks of question cards on my desk, each with their own themed questions. I had started a fifth deck but wasn’t sure about the theme and, when I did the board and rule revisions, I made it possible to play with just the four but left a little wiggle room if I want to add the fifth back in, that one or maybe one with a different theme.
Next play test is next week. Hopefully, I don’t come up with any new ideas between now and then. 🙂
