We’ve gotten better at tracking key metrics on our playtest games. It’s provided great insight on our game design decisions to ensure we are moving in the right direction.
We wanted to share how the game stats have changed over the last few iterations of the game.
The Stats
- Good/Bad: A simple binary ranking if we considered the game fun (good) or not
- Point Spread: Average health difference the two players have at the end of a game
- Remaining Cards: To measure deck churn, how many cards were not drawn
- Reshuffle Discard: How many times a player cycled through their deck and reshuffled their discards to make a new draw deck.
- Game Time: How long did it take to complete the game
- First player win %: What percent of time did the player who went first win?
- One Sided: A simple binary ranking if we think the game was one sided or competitive
- Comeback: A simple binary score if a player seemed to be losing, but ended up winning
- Lead Changes: Number of times the player with the most health changes
Note that not all of these stats were tracked for every version. We’ve added more as we’ve continued playtesting with a focus on data to help refine the game.
Version 1.63 & v 1.64
Primary changes: slower card draw and additional actions from locations. Playtest was done between two different decks with different playstyles.
- Good/Bad: 63% Good
- Average Point Spread: 14
- Average Remaining Cards: 9.9
- Average Game Time: 19 min
- First player win %: 63%
Version 1.7
Primary changes: increased card draw & removed additional actions from locations. Playtest was done with same decks as v 1.63 & v1.64 with minor adjustments.
- Good/Bad: 50% Good
- Average Point Spread: 13
- Average Remaining Cards: 2.1
- Average Game Time: 21 min
- First player win %: 83%
Version 1.71
Primary changes: two different discard piles, adjusted first and second player starting turns. Playtest was done with same decks as Version 1.7
- Good/Bad: 90% Good
- Average Point Spread: 9
- Average Remaining Cards: 0
- Average Reshuffle Discard: 1.5
- Average Game Time: 21 min
- First player win %: 50%
Version 1.72
Primary changes: card point cost adjustments to try and address some lopsided games in Version 1.71. Two sets of decks were used for playtesting and are broken out below
Same decks as version 1.71
- Good/Bad: 14% Good
- Average Point Spread: 20.1
- Average Remaining Cards: 2.5
- Average Reshuffle Discard: 1.1
- Average Game Time: 20.5 min
- First player win %: 71%
The two decks being played up until this point were wildly different. So we switched to playing the same decks to try and isolate imbalances to fix. The results were pretty stark using the same decks with no other changes.
- Good/Bad: 70% Good
- Average Point Spread: 13.1
- Average Remaining Cards: 2.2
- Average Reshuffle Discard: 1.6
- Average Game Time: N/A
- First player win %: 40%
Version 1.73
Primary changes: card ability and point adjustments. Playtest done using duplicate decks
- Good/Bad: 70% Good
- Average Point Spread: 10.8
- Average Remaining Cards: 0.3
- Average Reshuffle Discard: 2.4
- Average Game Time: 21.7 min
- First player win %: 60%
- One Sided: 60% No
- Comeback: 30% Yes
- Average Lead Changes: 3.2
Next Steps
Version 1.74 will incorporate some feedback from new playtesters and test it out. If all looks good using duplicate decks, we will test version 1.74 with distinct decks playing each other and identify new pain points to fix.
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