Had a good playtest of Vector Cycles today

At our Central Ohio Game Designers meetup today (a group I organize locally), We were able to get several games on the table, including my Vector Cycles prototype. I shelved this game a few years back, so this was the first time I got it on the table after the recent changes.

We had a couple issues come up during the playtest. But, they seem like easy fixes:

• The AIs can only only make standard turns, not sharp turns. That limits their movement, and means they will self-eliminate more often.

• There was a dice drafting bias: the player that rolled the dice got the first pic, and had the best options.

• Only getting a Power Up card once per green zone was too limiting, and there were too few green zones.

• One of the AIs crashed early and was eliminated, which meant that the controlling player had nothing to do during that phase of the game.

Allowing the AI characters to make sharp turns as needed solves the first issue. Players are still limited to only making standard turns, unless they use a Power Up card.

The dice drafting issue is also easily solved. For the next iteration, I plan to implement an automatic first player rotation, so that one player doesn't always roll the dice and get first pick.

I'm also adding some more green zones between the central core and the outer ring, to give players more chances to get Power Up cards. And, I'm changing the rule so that players get a Power Up card each time they interact with a Green Zone, not just the first time.

And, in the next version, the AIs will "respawn" at a different starting location after they are eliminated. I am concerned that players may intentionally crash their AI just so they can respawn another, so I'm going to have to playtest it and see if it's an issue.

I also asked the other players if the board was large enough. Neither of the other players felt that the board was too small, or that it needed to be larger. That's a good sign, because the Game Crafter doesn't offer a larger dry-erase board unless I tile multiple boards together.

Overall, it was a good playtest. We were able to get thru a full 3 player game in just about an hour, which is my target game duration. Even though no one won the game, I got very close to winning.