Game Balance

We playtested my card game A Death in the Family again last night. It's got some really great game mechanics that simulate the Machiavellian intrigues of a conniving, backstabbing family. Unfortunately, some of the game mechanics would allow a player to basically put another player out of the game early on, so we made some adjustments to the rules for last night's gameplay.

Turns out we adjusted the rules too far. We played for 45 minutes last night with hardly a budge to the game state. At that rate, it would take four hours to get anywhere in the game.

Luckily, I have a group of friends who are intelligent, patient, and creative all at once, and we came up with some great ideas for balancing the game out a little more. But this process of fine-tuning the balance of a game (or even doing a rough cut at game balance), is a long, slow, painful one. It's not often that we have an opportunity to play the game, so adjustments take months to test. I guess this is why the game publishers hire a team of playtesters.