Post #6: Gentleman's Dash - Version 1

Gentlemen's Dash

Version 1 to 2

Group: 7 (The No Name Guys)

Game Title: Gentlemen's Dash

Game Summary

    Gentlemen's Dash is a game about balancing speed for style. In this game you play as a scientist racing other scientists to get in line first for the money grant offered by your local academy. However, being first does not guarantee you the grant, you must still conduct yourself as a proper gentleman in order to earn their favor. Go too fast and you risk losing to your opponent building up more points than you, go too slow and you risk missing out on the large finish line bonus. 

Version 1

    With my previous experiences in creating board/card games I found that our group would regularly come up with too many features or we would leave too much room for future features, so I pushed for a game that was extremely simple, but that could achieve a decent level of depth. My aim was a game that could be played with nothing more than a couple decks of cards and maybe some paper and pencil to keep track of things. I chose a standard deck of playing cards because of how likely people were to have one. Same with coins. I wanted the whole game to be something that spectators could look at and think, “Oh I think I get it” or, “that looks simple enough.” I might like to present our playtesters with two different rule sheets. One sheet would be our more detailed version that we currently have, and the other would not be as thorough, but would be much more condensed. I wonder if we are underestimating our future players or overestimating them. I also thought it would be nice to have a single card that has all the information you need to play the game without constantly referring back to the rule sheet. Can it be done? Just how much information is truly needed to play this game? How wide a gap can I make in a logical leap where the average person can work it out? I have seen games with almost no rules and have thought that those systems were the most elegant and pleasant to absorb. Can our game do the same? I think it helps that this game is done so quickly and that the point values are relatively easy to remember, but I could think that simply because I originally conceived of most of it. I am happy that my partner has been able to go along with it and “pick up what I was putting down.” He has been a big help in getting the game to where it currently is, and I am enjoying our collaboration.

Version 2

    We did not do too many big changes to version 2, most of it was tweaks with little to no new features added. I think that is the best way to iterate on our design as we still have not received much feedback on it from playtests. Most of what we did was lower the bonus received from crossing the finish line, and make the really high movement cards worth no points to make the lower movement cards more worthwhile. Because our finish line is represented simply as a distance in meters, my partner came up with the idea that the players had to reach that distance exactly in order to get the finish line bonus. This automatically placed more value on the lower movement cards, which was what I wanted all along! Very clever idea, and now the game feels really strategic, without feeling overly complicating or lacking depth. 

Overview

    I am really enjoying the result of this game, and I think it is something that once we dress it up with some more visuals, it could pass as a rather pleasant game. My only concern is that keeping score in real time is a bit tedious, as you are keeping track of two different numbers for yourself, and the two different numbers for your opponent. Using Excel is great for this, but for an actual card game it would certainly be better if the players had less to keep track of. I would also like to add more dramatical elements, but I don’t want to sacrifice the simplicity nor the clarity that the game currently provides. We will need to tread carefully with how to change our rule sheets, but I think we will know more once we’ve received a decent number of critiques.