Escape from Nemo's Island playtest 04-06-2025

I had a pretty good playtest of my game, Escape from Nemo's Island, at the local game designers meetup on Sunday. I had 3 designers playtest the game, with me facilitating but not playing. Only one had played the game before.

The Good:

The volcano erupted just about where I needed it to, so I think that the trap cards are close to where they need to be. Also, the tension of the game is where I want it to be.

The new skulls on the backs of the location cards worked well, and influenced the players decisions. Players avoided the 2-skull and 3-skull locations until later in the game.

The Bad:

In an effort to reduce the number of components, I had removed some resource tokens. I thought that players could just pick up cards. But, I realized that picking up cards left ugly holes in the island/board, and I would still need some tokens for the supplies that players found with clues.

Also, certain player powers might be broken. One player theorized that he could have even more points (he won the game) by using his ability over and over. So, I may have to nerf some abilities, or remove some of the characters.

And finally, one of the players suggested adding a character that can re-use the trap cards, or make some use of the traps once they have sprung. I'm going to have to think about that more.

Overall, the game ran well, and everyone had fun.