Meeplesburg notes from play testers at FallCon 2014. Photos included!

Meeplesburg notes from play testers at FallCon 2014

 

So I had a great time at FallCon this year in Calgary. I had 6 play testing sessions with Meeplesburg. I got in a couple of 2 player games, a couple of 5 player games and a couple of 4 player games. I received plenty of valuable feedback from the play testers. Mainly they found it to be fun, challenging, compelling game and it only takes an hour to play!

 

Here a few pictures from the event:

 

Here is the setup for a 2-player game

Here we are near the end of 5-player game

Hugh Polley is considering his options

A couple of turns into a 2-player game--and there's a copy of INFECTION on the table

Here is the signage I whipped up in Photoshop for the table

This is the FallCon scheduled Playtesting area

Almost at the end of a game by the looks of it

John Montague is weighing his options as he contemplates his next turn

 

Here is the useful feedback I got:

·         Put Construction, Purchase, Upgrade labels on both sides of the board

·         Move Apprentice area up and label it.

·         Put an arrow to move cards from Construction area to Purchase area

·         Use an arrow or some other kind of symbol in the Mason area for moving masons to the other 3 areas

·         Could use the phrase Legacy Points instead of Victory Points; less militaristic

·         Use a block or heavy boarder between the Worker area and the Purchase area

·         Use part of the Action board for Player action instructions

·         You can spend $35 to copy write your rules in the USA

·         On the building cards, move up the construction area so it is at the top and lines up with the double meeple symbol. Use the same background as the board

·         Change the row/column layout so that opposite meeples are different colours. Yellow-Blue

·         Check out Alien frontiers for the iconography they use. Keep this in mind for the “Or” symbol on the card and the Wall or Income on the action board

·         Tap card for money right away? NO!

·         Get rid of the building icon on the building tile. Put the Meeple inside a house of the same colour.

·         Put spots on tile for placing the house, tenant and monument

·         Move the money symbol to a different location on the card. I think it should overlap the construction section and the meeple section. The $3 coin will be a different color. Make it clearer. Don’t need the money symbol on the tile either.

·         Use 3 platforms instead of 5 for all number of players. Different platforms have different number of tenant spaces on them: 1, 2, 3. There will only be one space for a mason per round for getting a platform

Infection: Humanity's Last Gasp - First screenshots of the Video Game

Hunted Cow Studios have now issued a press release that they are developing my game into a video game and have shared 8 screenshots of the game; 4 from the PC version and 4 from the iOS version.

Here is some verbiage from the press release: 

We're pleased to release the first alpha screenshots of John Gibson’s Infection: Humanity’s Last Gasp by developer Criss Cross Games. Scheduled for release in December for PC, Mac, iOS and Android; this is the first release from the announcement of the partnership between Hunted Cow Studios and Victory Point Games.

About the Game

Infection: Humanity’s Last Gasp was named one of the Top 30 Solitaire Board Games by Box of Delights and one of the 2013 Best Thematic Solitaire Games for the Spare Time Challenged on BoardGameGeek!

In Infection: Humanity's Last Gasp, by designer John Gibson, you are the director of the Department of Plague Control (DPC) field office in New York City. You make the decisions about what parts of the virus to study, which personnel to hire, and what equipment to purchase. You’ll soon discover you are working with an eccentric group of scientists who don’t always work well together—and one very resourceful lab rat named Marvin. As the casualties increase, so does the stress and mistakes made, as you try to complete your vaccine before time runs out for all of mankind!

This strategy game uses simple mechanics in a multitude of combinations to create engaging, deep gameplay as you try to eliminate an evolving virus that could spell the end of the human race. While random events from the Status Report cards might throw a wrench in your plans (or occasionally help you out), you’ll use the Lab Personnel and Equipment cards you’ve hired to piece together randomly generated proteins into the different parts of a vaccine, all while managing dwindling funding resources as the Death Toll Track climbs. Each time that your Containment roll fails you come one step closer to losing this battle, so make sure that you push everyone to their limits before the infection reaches critical levels.

http://forums.huntedcow.com/topic/68375-infection-humanitys-last-gasp-first-screenshots/

Here is the default view for the PC version of the video game

Here is the default view of the iOS version of the video game