Last Saturday we got to playtest TheDeep: Mine rules, and I'm please to say it went well.
Primarily, we had a lot of fun. That is, of course, the only actual goal of a game so that's good.
We were able to test the rules out, and they seem to work pretty well. We found a few rules that turned out to be completely unnecessary, and a few rules were added that I had missed. But there wasn't any glaring holes, so that's excellent.
The monster values need to be tweaked, but since I just made them up from nothing and had no real idea how they would function, that was expected. We also confirmed that cards, not charts, is the better way to go for events and monsters. Since this was a test we just had everything in charts (because they're easier to adjust if needed), but cards would make things run much smoother.
Here are some shots of the table for our test.
The first encounter, a pair of giant scorpions! The second one is around the corner, just left of the one you can see.
Way down the hall on the left is the guy with the rifle; He did not survive this encounter. He made it something like 16 feet before being killed. Not a promising start!
Note the awesome cobwebs that I, a master terrain maker, have included for atmosphere!
Okay, fine. It's hot glue strands I didn't get rid of because I didn't see them. But intentional cobwebs makes me sound much cooler.
This is a shot of much later in the game. There's nothing overly exciting happening here, but it shows the board nicely.
Tiles are picked randomly, then randomly populated with stuff. Here you can see some of the "scenic items" (crates, barrels, etc), the boarded up entrance (lower right), and three caved in entrances. Four actually, I missed the one all the way at the bottom.
This is one of the boarded up entrances. Figures can break through these if the wish, or if they need to. This situation resulted in an additional cooperation rule that lets multiple figures attempt something. None of these guys was strong enough to get through on their own, and no one had brought a crowbar.
This is the second game, which is why the rifle guy is there.
The little 1's are Spooked Tokens, meaning the guys are scared. The guy in the lower right is actually "Spooked Bad", which made him sort of useless for the rest of the game.
Just another shot that looked nice.
This is (or was) Marge. She has just resolved an Investigation Marker, which is why she's facing the wall instead of the massive black dog that's attacking her.
You can also see the superb little lanterns that Eric made. It sits on a toothpick, and the toothpick fits int that brown sleeve I made. It's magnetic so it sticks to the bases. Is some of the other photos you can see some figures "carrying" torches in them.
We only had two lanterns, but they're awesome. Seriously, it even has a little handle!
I'll keep working on the tiles. I ran out of wood for the beams, but even so they look all right.
I think I'll make a few more tiles too.
And, of course, tighten up the rules wording, make monster cards, treasure cards, items....
Primarily, we had a lot of fun. That is, of course, the only actual goal of a game so that's good.
We were able to test the rules out, and they seem to work pretty well. We found a few rules that turned out to be completely unnecessary, and a few rules were added that I had missed. But there wasn't any glaring holes, so that's excellent.
The monster values need to be tweaked, but since I just made them up from nothing and had no real idea how they would function, that was expected. We also confirmed that cards, not charts, is the better way to go for events and monsters. Since this was a test we just had everything in charts (because they're easier to adjust if needed), but cards would make things run much smoother.
Here are some shots of the table for our test.
Way down the hall on the left is the guy with the rifle; He did not survive this encounter. He made it something like 16 feet before being killed. Not a promising start!
Note the awesome cobwebs that I, a master terrain maker, have included for atmosphere!
Okay, fine. It's hot glue strands I didn't get rid of because I didn't see them. But intentional cobwebs makes me sound much cooler.
Tiles are picked randomly, then randomly populated with stuff. Here you can see some of the "scenic items" (crates, barrels, etc), the boarded up entrance (lower right), and three caved in entrances. Four actually, I missed the one all the way at the bottom.
This is one of the boarded up entrances. Figures can break through these if the wish, or if they need to. This situation resulted in an additional cooperation rule that lets multiple figures attempt something. None of these guys was strong enough to get through on their own, and no one had brought a crowbar.
This is the second game, which is why the rifle guy is there.
The little 1's are Spooked Tokens, meaning the guys are scared. The guy in the lower right is actually "Spooked Bad", which made him sort of useless for the rest of the game.
This is (or was) Marge. She has just resolved an Investigation Marker, which is why she's facing the wall instead of the massive black dog that's attacking her.
You can also see the superb little lanterns that Eric made. It sits on a toothpick, and the toothpick fits int that brown sleeve I made. It's magnetic so it sticks to the bases. Is some of the other photos you can see some figures "carrying" torches in them.
We only had two lanterns, but they're awesome. Seriously, it even has a little handle!
I'll keep working on the tiles. I ran out of wood for the beams, but even so they look all right.
I think I'll make a few more tiles too.
And, of course, tighten up the rules wording, make monster cards, treasure cards, items....
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