Player Count Problems and Solutions
Decision Space
Intro
This chapter explores the challenges and considerations of determining player count in game design, emphasizing the significant gameplay variations that can result. It also includes a celebration of a new game launch alongside reflections on personal experiences in the game development process.
Decision Space is the podcast about decisions in board games.
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Episode 221 - Balancing for Player Count (WWTA)
A game development episode in which Pete, Paul, and Brendan ask the important questions:
What makes games flexible or inflexible when it comes to player count?
Should a publisher put a suboptimal player count on a box?
Are there games that you would only play at one player count?
Timestamps
02:40- main topic begins
05:00- games with fixed player count
18:03- challenges and solutions for player count flexibility
30:00- game design discussion
40:30- player count variants
49:45- games that are naturally scalable
54:15- games you would only play at one player count
58:20- what player counts should go on the box?
1:08:50- closing thoughts
Games mentioned
Unrest, Werewords, Codenames, Star Realms, Magic the Gathering, A Feast for Odin, Fromage, Earth, Planet Unknown, Wingspan, Honey Buzz, Crits & Tricks, Lobby Snacks, Enchanted Plumes, Viticulture, Age of Innovation, Dune Imperium, Watches and Clocks of Dickory Docks, Robotrick, 7 Wonders, The Crew: Mission Deep Sea, Fellowship of the Ring the Trick-Taking Game, Santorini, Race for the Galaxy, Kingdomino, Cascadia, Incan Gold, Not Alone, A Game of Throne: The Board Game (second edition), Unlock, Tigris & Euphrates, Root, Orapa Mine, Santa's Workshop, No Loose Ends, Trinket Trove, El Grande
Pete's dev diary on No Loose Ends
https://boardgamegeek.com/blog/1/blogpost/175099/developer-diary-no-loose-ends
Preplanners
Pete is still putting Brenan through the reps of Root expansion factions so we can make part two of our deep dive on that game!
Music and Sound Credits
Thank you to Hembree for our intro and outro music from their song Reach Out. You can listen to the full song on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQuuRPfOyMw&list=TLGGFNH7VEDPgwgyNTA4MjAyMQ&t=3s
You can find more information about Hembree at https://www.hembreemusic.com/.
Thank you to Flash Floods for use of their song Palm of Your Hand as a sting from their album Halfway to Anywhere: https://open.spotify.com/album/2fE6LrqzNDKPYWyS5evh3K?si=CCjdAGmeSnOOEui6aV3_nA
Rules Overview Music:
Way Home by Tokyo Music Walker https://soundcloud.com/user-356546060 Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/tokyo-music-walker-way... Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/pJThZlOuDtI
Intermission Music:
music elevator ext part 1/3 by Jay_You -- https://freesound.org/s/467243/ -- License: Attribution 4.0
Bell with Crows by MKzing -- https://freesound.org/s/474266/ -- License: Creative Commons 0
hammer v2.wav by blukotek -- https://freesound.org/s/337815/ -- License: Creative Commons 0
Contact
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This information is all available along with episodes at our new website decisionspacepodcast.com.
Byeee!
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