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Details on the Improvements
Solo Variant
Since we know there are a lot of solo games out there, we've made the addition of a formal Solo variant to the game. It doesn't involve the playing of multiple characters (unless you want to!) and has a few modifications to make it more suitable for solo play.
The key changes are a greater hand limit and and completion of 2 full turns before moving on to the Progression Phase. It's been playtested a fair few times and seems to work which is a positive outcome.
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Event Deck
The feedback we had was that the Event Deck felt too harsh and too random with insufficient player choice - so now most cards either have a 'Current Player Decides' option or some way to reduce the card's effect. The result of this is that the deck is way too easy for play!!
The job now is to balance this deck while maintaining the new content. We are also aiming to reduce the deck down to 54 cards, removing all duplicates. Given that a 5-player game should use a maximum of 60 cards (assuming they play all 12 rounds, which is unlikely) we hope that 54 will be more than enough to give a variety of events between games whilst also making the deck less cumbersome.
A couple of example new-style Event Cards (still a WIP) are shown in the pictures below:
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Encounter Deck
We had some feedback that the Encounter deck didn't feel 'Special' especially given all the effort it takes to visit a planet (and that so few are visited in a game!). So we've changed this. All Encounter cards are now 'nice' however only some of them activate immediately, whilst others are either put in your hand or attached to a location and can be activated as a Free Action when an AI-bot is there. The exact number, for now, is being kept at 18 but ultimate the number of these cards will depend on manufacturing constraints. Some examples are shown below:
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Player Turn
To give more flexibility there have been 2 key changes to the player turn. Firstly, you may now take an action before you move or you may move then take an action. This is to help stop players getting stuck doing a single task and to allow for better planning about movement around the board.
The second change is that a player can now play 2 cards of the same type as any card type as long as they also play at least 1 card of the required type for that action. For example, you may discard 1 Heal card and 2 Fly cards in Medical to Heal 3 Scientists (in place of the 2 Heal cards normally required). This gives more flexibility with your hand and initial feedback is positive.
The third change we've implemented is to remove the 'Discard Hand' player action. This has been replaced with 'Draw 2 Cards' instead. This means a player will always have an action they can do and if they don't like their hand they will ultimately draw up 4 new cards in their turn, discarding down to the normal hand limit at the end of their turn.
Finally, we are also now trialling drawing an Event card at the start of a players turn rather than at the end. This way you always have a chance to fix things before the Progression Phase commences. I'll let you know in a future update how this goes.
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Player Count Scaling & Win / Lose Conditions
The Event Deck is not the only deck that is shrinking. The Player Deck has been shrunk from 108 cards to 72. This means in higher player count games the deck will need cycling but it should be easier to shuffle and tighter in terms of a lose condition. The number of cards included in the cycled stack depends on the player count and should better act as a timer. The deck size has been calculated assuming the players reaching a certain round (round 12 for 1-2 players and round 9 for 5 players) and allowing 1 visit to the Repair Bay for each player. This still needs a lot more playtesting but it's an improvement over the unwieldy 108 card deck.
The number of Scientists required in Deep Stasis has also now been changed depending on the number of players. This can also be varied depending on the game difficulty that you want to play. 1-2 player games need only send 8 Scientists into Deep Stasis, whilst 5 player games required 12.
The Win / Lose conditions have also now been streamlined with only the win conditions being checked in the Progression Phase - all other lose conditions occur immediately. However, as before, to win, no lose conditions may be met - this is now a 'Win Condition'.
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Thanks for reading to the end of this huge update. We hope you have time to check out our Spaceship Builders game and like the look of the changes to The mAIden Voyage. Happy gaming until next time!
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