Okay so, seeing as the game is in its
Showdown phase and as such, essentially over from a mechanically influence-able standpoint, I feel like now, while I have a moment, is an appropriate time to post my overall thoughts on this game and its mechanics. To be honest, I didn't know what I was expecting going in. Not much. For the first day or two of this game, I almost forgot that I was even playing. I saw people roleplaying and getting really into that aspect, but I didn't really have energy for it so I just resolved to put in the bare minimum effort and randomly pick an opponent. This worked for a few phases, but then... something started to happen.
See, the thing about this format - a secret point of brilliance honestly - is that a few phases in, I started to approach the game differently. Hm, what cards did I have? I used binocs on YTSSM night 1, what cards did he have? What rounds has he lost? What cards do I know he still has? Let's look at like, Waluigi Time. What cards did HE have? Well, I don't know, so what cards has he played? What cards do I know he's lost? He only has three cards left, so if he's survived with two tuns of rock, chances are good he either has multiple rocks or only rocks - but what if he doesn't? What if, this whole time, he's been baiting people into using paper on him, because he actually just has one rock and two scissors?
This passive strategy was, in my opinion, something this board really needed. It felt really engaging to analyze and predict without needing to commit myself wholly to the idea of needing to roleplay and socially engineer. Certainly its possible to make an alliance, but that only protects you from one player in a game with many, all gunning for your head on a platter. In that sense, I LOVED this game. I had a ton of fun just lurking in the background, thinking about what card to play. There isn't much out there like it, and there isn't much I would complain about - but as the game went on, a few issues kind of did start to rear their head. I'd like to talk about some of those here and offer recommendations.
- It sucks to only have one type of card left.
- This one is something I really started to feel towards the end of the game, which quickly sapped a lot of my motivation. My early hand draw was very unbalanced, so I was stuck with a lot of Paper cards and very few Rock or Scissors. In this sense, almost from the get-go, I felt as though the random selection of cards was pretty rough to deal with, especially as my special card was Binocs, which while useful, didn't offer me any defense or offensive capabilities like Wild or Net. I was okay with this for a while, until I was down to just three or four Papers, at which point the game started to feel really bad because everyone else had Scissors and was spamming that. It didn't leave me with many options at all, and the depth of the strategy was just to throw whatever at someone who plays Rock often still.
- In my opinion, I think there's a few options. First of all, I would consider expanding the base hand and giving everyone an equal amount of Rock, Paper, and Scissors - as well as one of each special card. This would make the game actually fair and balanced around strategy rather than the luck of the initial draw - and it also ascribes more value to Binocs in the later game.
- Secondly, I would consider adding an option to Swap. This hypothetical mechanic, in my opinion, should allow you to select a card and spend one turn completely vulnerable to attack in order to exchange it to a random type of card that is not the version you played. Likewise, getting attacked in this state should remove one other card that you did not offer up to Swap, chosen at random. This option puts your "lives" at great risk, but also allows a player with, say, all Papers to actually remain competitive and give them an option besides rolling over and dying if someone with a rock looks at them funny. I think this would make the endgame significantly more fun for later game players who got screwed on their card counts and basically have no options.
- Net is vastly more powerful than other options
- I'll be honest, some of this might just be salt because I lost my last actually usable card to Net, but I don't see a world where this card is remotely balanced at all. Not only is it an unconditional defense, not only does it effectively "damage" anyone who attacks you, but it also recovers potentially all your health and then some. You could argue it's a gamble to use, but its not really. In the later game with limited targets, if you're low health its practically risk-free to use Net because in the game's current state, nobody knows you have it, it guarantees you survive the round no matter what, and it potentially can take you from last to first place instantly.
- Honestly, I think this one needs a full rework. Turn it into a Shield that just protects you and destroys the card, or a Scanner that copies the card and protects you without stealing it from others. Right now, this card does literally everything and is so vastly superior to Binocs or Wild that after seeing it in use, I felt significantly underpowered compared to players that have Net.
- Alternatively, giving everyone all three of these cards from the start and therefore making Net both a universal option and known quantity fixes all of this imbalance instantly.
Honestly uh... like I said, besides these two issues, I didn't have much to complain about at all. I thought this game was honestly pretty sick and I would be happy to join another. Really inventive, really fun.
