3. ____________________________________________________________________
Playtest 1
I had trouble this week with trying to find unbiased playtesters that were not in my immediate social circle, so
Saturday I decided to find some regular board gamers and went to my local comic books and games store, Area
51.
After telling the manager what I was
doing and asking for a few tables to
conduct the playtests, he was nice to
direct me to two of his regular
gamers there. I met Paul Coxe (42)
and Edward Perez (44), who both
arrived early for a Star Trek Ship
Battle game. I told them about the
game and nicely asked them if they
had time to come playtest it for me.
They accepted, since the other
players for their game were running
late, and came over to the table to
read the game rules, captain cards, disaster cards, and set-up chart that I had printed out while I set-up the game
board and population on the cities.
Captain Mehndi Kapoor (Middle Eastern descent, Gypsy)
Vessel Name: The Maccha Yantra
Starting Income: 10
Speed Rating: 9
Cargo Capacity: 4
Upgrades/Cost:
Speed Upgrade: 1 = $15,2 = $30, 3 = $45
Cargo Capacity: 1 = $12, 2 = $24, 3 = $36
4. Set-Up
Paul asked me a question to clarify
the notes I had on “Population
Tokens” where it says 1 mini poker
chip represents 10 actual citizens. I
plan to reword this to show that
this is only to make it more realistic
and is not related to the game in
any way.
Paul chose Captain Mehndi
Kapoor, who manages The
Maccha Yantra and Edward
chose Captain Kaito Masuyo,
who manages the Dai Uzumaki
(Maelstrom in Japanese), and
placed their related vessels on
the map at their starting hex
tile. Immediately, Paul noticed
an error in the order of the
player’s turn steps regarding
movement and
loading/unloading passengers,
which were set up initially as
Loading/Unloading Passengers
phase for Step 2 and the
Movement phase for Step 3, so
I had to change the order
forthwith. After a few rounds,
Edward noted that the radius of
the Super Storm Disaster card
needed to be changed because it was confusing. I notated this and plan to change it for the next playtest. They
both played for about 11 Rounds, which took about 40 minutes and then had to leave to set up their Star Trek
tournament games, so we couldn’t finish this playtest completely. Paul ended up with 18 points and Edward had
13. They told me it was an interesting game and would love to playtest it again sometime, but I couldn’t find
them after their tournament. I asked them for suggestions or any comments and they both thought that the
bookkeeping for the disasters was hard to keep track of. Edward suggested that a Disaster Chart with tokens
representing rounds of duration might work, so after the playtest, I developed the chart for each Disaster and
Region.
Disaster Chart
Disaster Region1 Region2 Region 3 Region 4 Region 5 Region6
5. Wildfire 2R
Forest tiles outside city: impassable for
2R. Spreads to adjacent.
Volcano 4R
Ash makes +3 movement cost in 2 tile
radius.
Super Storm 3R
+2 movement cost to all vessels in 2 tile
radius.
Earthquake 2R
All vessels cannot take off or land in
affected tiles.
Flood 2R
All adjacent forest, swamp, desert, and
grassland tiles are ocean and add +2
movement cost.
Tsunami (Global) 3R
Coastal tiles are impassable for duration,
vessels cannot land or take off.
Global Warming (Global) 5R
Meteor Shower (Global) 2R
Sinkhole (Global)
Tile becomes impassable by
amphibious ships for the
remaining duration of the game.
Steam Geyser 2R
Tile affectedbecomes impassable
to all ships for duration.
Playtest 2
The second playtest happened Tuesday night with some of my wife’s friends. Jennifer (36), Georgia (14), and
Cole (11) Holsomback came over and proceeded to help test the game.
6. Jennifer picked Quinn O’Cleary, Cole picked Vasco DeBarros, and Georgia selected Mathilda Kraus as their
respective Captains. I noticed right off the bat that all of them were Airships. I thought this would be a good
balancing test for these captains, and it didn’t disappoint. None of them had many questions and genuinely
seemed to be enjoying the game. Halfway through the game, the score was almost even, even though Cole got
blocked by a few disasters, so it seemed to be pretty balanced. In the end, Georgia won, with 39 points after 2
hours and 24 minutes. Jennifer had 32 points and Cole ended up with 36 points. Cole suggested that on the
Volcanic Eruption disaster card to make it more interesting and to give players incentive to go after the people
and save them from the magma instead of just halving the population like the card says. It now has a 4 round
duration and provides double the passenger fees to Captains that can come fast enough to save them. At the end
of the 4 Rounds, half of the remaining population dies from the lava and half are displaced to the nearest city.
During this playtest, I also thought of a better way to keep track of the rounds and shuttle timer by using a mini
abacus. The first rung will mark each round and after every 5 rounds the second rung will mark each shuttle
leaving the planet. I will have to do research to see if I can find an abacus that could work for the next playtest.
Playtest 3
The third playtest involved only one other person besides my wife, Annie (39). Mark Kreamer (32), our
chiropractor, came by the house to help out since I was having problems finding people to help playtest the
game. He isn’t really a big gamer, so his feedback helped give insight into average, middle aged non-gamer
demographic.
7. He decided to pick Kaito Masuya, the Japanese Amphibious ship captain and Annie selected Aya McCloud, the
Irish Airship captain. After looking at his captain card, Mark immediately had a question about the upgrades. He
asked “Does 2 = $30 mean that I can spend $30 for a speed rating upgrade of 2? I said “No, that 2 is the second
upgrade and it costs $30, but it is accumulative, so you have to buy the first one at $15, then you can buy the
second one later at $30”. I also told him that only one upgrade could be purchased at a time, so I edited the
Game Rules at this time to reflect this. I realized that this needed rewording for the next playtest, so I planned to
change it to “Upgrade 1: $15, 2nd Upgrade: $30, 3rd Upgrade: $45” to clarify it better. As soon as Annie, playing as
Aya, realized how many passengers Mark’s captain could carry (8), she immediately realized that she couldn’t win
against Kaito because of the income he could create so much faster. By the halfway mark (Round 13), Mark had
already generated over triple the income of Aya, but both of their upgrade costs were the same.
I decided to rework the Upgrade costs of both the Airships
and the Amphibious ships after this playtest, so I made notes
to make Aya’s cargo capacity upgrades to become $8, $16,
and $24. Kaito’s new upgrade costs for speed became $30,
$45, and $60 and his cargo upgrade costs became $20, $30,
and $40.
The game lasted 2 hours and Mark won with 45 points, with
Annie losing with only 31 points, so there definitely needs to
be better balancing between the Airship Captains and
Amphibious Captains.
Another thing I decided needed reworking at this point was
the bookkeeping of the Banker. Annie was having to think
about her strategies and deal with all the responsibilities of
the Banker, which are many. I decided to put the Disaster
Chart in charge of a different player so that the Banker
wouldn’t be overwhelmed. So for the next playtest, the
players would volunteer to manage the Disaster Chart so
that the Banker would be less stressed during the actual gameplay and be able to have his/her head in the game
more.
Playtest 4
8. For the third playtest, I brought the game over to my sister’s house on Christmas Day. After we ate, Loretta
Taylor (my sister, 48), Steve Cooper (brother, 50), Scott Cooper (brother, 52), Rebekah Cooper (daughter, 14),
Cheryl Wilkins (Steve’s wife, 52), Annie Cooper (wife, 39) and Spencer Cooper (son, 16) played. After explaining
the rules, Annie decided to just be the banker, Spencer had the highest roll and selected Gustav LaSalle, then
Loretta selected Aya McCloud, Cheryl selected Mathilda Kraus, Scott selected Vasco DeBarros, and finally Steve
selected Kaito Masuyo.
Since Steve selected his captain last,
he went first. The only questions
before the game started were the
terrain spaces and the different
between the Airships and
Amphibious ships, the latter being
the only ships affected by the
terrain. I explained that some of
the disasters would affect the
Airships and showed everyone the
changes I made from the last
playtest.
During the first few rounds, I
decided that having one person play
the banker was much more efficient and effective than asking a competitive player to manage their ship and
manage the banker’s responsibilities, so I made notes to the Rules that for a 2 player game, the players would
split banker duties and for any game with more players that one of the players would be just the banker. I even
thought about making a Banker Card with all the responsibilities listed on it: one side showing a male banker and
the flip side showing a female banker.
After 5 rounds (1 hour), Rebekah and Cheryl were tied with 12 points and the rest of the pack were not far
behind them. The balancing changes I made to the upgrade costs seemed to be helping. Steve was saving his
money to get multiple upgrades, even after I explained to him that the upgrades were accumulative and had to be
bought in order. He said, “No problem, I’m just saving for that last upgrade”. I tried explaining that it was more
efficient to purchase upgrades as you get more income, but he was adamant at saving his money, so I didn’t push
it. Apparently the changes I made to the Captain Card Upgrades didn’t have the effect that I wanted and didn’t
explain it enough. After he accumulated over $60, he tried purchasing all of the speed upgrades at the same time
and asked why there wasn’t a way for him to do that. I thought about it for a couple of more rounds and
decided that it would make sense for a Captain to be able to purchase more than one upgrade of the same type,
if the player so wanted, just not multiple upgrades of a different type. Steve ended up purchasing the speed
upgrades he wanted in consecutive rounds and finally started to catch up to the leaders in points.
Rebekah ended up winning the game with 36 points, with Steve coming in second with 34 points. The rest of
the pack besides Spencer, who got caught multiple times by disasters and had to skip his turn a lot, were not that
far behind the leaders.
Everyone said they had fun and said the game just needed a couple of clarification changes for it to be finished.
After the game, Scott suggested that the terrain tiles be a bit easier to understand, so I decided to label each tile
with the terrain type and movement cost for easy reference instead of all the players referring to the Map Key.
9. Playtest 5
Saturday morning, I streamlined all the rules by moving the Purchase Phase as the last step, which made it
possible to buy upgrades on the player’s first turn. I then made it to where a Captain can load and unload
passengers and keep moving the rest of his movement points. This really sped up the game and really made the
game flow a lot better. I also made a template for a new Captain Card that has upgrade spots for chips to be
placed where captains have purchased the upgrades to avoid any more confusion. I decided Banker needed to be a
stand-alone character, yet non-competitive player, because of all the bookkeeping and managing they had to do.
Then, I made the new Banker Card and devised a Banker Scorecard which the banker actually used in the final
playtest, since I could not find a suitable abacus. The Scorecard has the player name and captain name they are
using, a round counter, and space to mark the Survivor Points.
10. I also started thinking of some neat bonuses for the Kickstarter campaign if I ever decided to go that route with
the game.
For the final playtest, I took the game to another Comics and Games store called Generation X, in Bedford, TX.
We found a really nice table there and Annie set up the board while I looked for potential testers. After
explaining what I was doing and describing the game, I ended up finding five guys that were playing Magic: The
Gathering who were generous enough to come test the prototype: Ben Dubroca (26), Terrence Samuel (20),
Mitchell Campozano (21), Stephen Stark (17), and Noah Bakri (22). Ben read the rules by himself and then
Mitchell read the rules to the rest of the guys. After rolling to determine the captain selection order, Ben had the
highest roll and selected Marina Volkov, captain of the slowest of the Amphibious Ships. Then, in order, Terrence
selected Kaito, Stephen selected Vasco, Mitchell selected Mathilda, and Noah selected Mendhi.
Noah started the game first and the turn order went counterclockwise with Terrence going last. All the players
understood the rules and upgrades this time and did not express any frustration at any time, in fact there was a
lot of laughter and they all seemed to be really enjoying the game. Noah ended up winning with 38 points with
Terrance at 32 points, Ben at 30 points, Stephen at 26 points, and Mitchell in last place with 25 points. The
three with the most points were amphibious ships, so I think I need to do a little more balancing there. All of the
players said they had fun playing and wanted to play again, but I didn’t have the time to stay. Overall, most of
the feedback for Cataclyzm was to flesh out more disaster cards to make it even more interesting. Ben suggested
that the board map be customizable so that the players can change the location of the cities, captain starting
locations, and the shuttles, so I’m thinking of updating the map by making it larger with more hex tiles, adding
more terrain to slow down the amphibious ships, and possibly making removable hexes so that players can create
the map the way they want it.
Ben also suggested that since the Tsunami disaster card makes it to where all coastal tiles are not traversable to
amphibious ships and as a consequence make them unable to travel into the mainland, to make it to where a
coastal city has a couple of citizens stranded in the water tile just outside of the city. The citizens can only last 2
rounds before they drown, but can only be picked up and loaded by amphibious ships and they also give a double
bonus passenger fee to the captains that save them. I really like this idea and will be implementing it for the next
playtest.
11. Mitchell suggested another idea for the Volcano tile to make the second radial tile traversable to amphibious
ships, but not airships. I will think about this and decide if I want to change it later. Terrence’s suggestion was to
adjust the population lower for the outlying cities to make it more of a competitive race to get to those cities. As
it is, there can be multiple captains picking up survivors from each of the further out cities. I liked this idea, so I
will be thinking of ways to make it more competitive soon.
