Last night we played the latest version of Biomes: 4.01. I almost wrote this blog last night, but it was late, so I am writing it today instead.
This version was much more focused then any the previous versions. I attribute this to the quests that are new as of prototype 4.0.
Statistics of Prototype 4.01
3 players
1 hour and 45 minutes of gameplay
11-13 rounds
55 tiles placed
3 of 5 keys earned, 2 lost
Discussion
The length in time was on the high side of what 3 players should experience, in my opinion. In particular, I think 2 hours is about the upper limit of what should be normal, for those that take longer to decide. Conversely, I think 1 hour is a good game length for 3 players with 30-45 minutes for quick games. We took a little less than the current average to make decisions but were close to that 2 hour mark. I would have been happy if it took an hour, but taking 45 minutes longer than than indicates to me that too much is going on for 3 people to deal with in a timely manner.
One of the causes of game length was the number of tiles placed. 55 in total, which is easily the new record, is a lot of tiles! The new tile placement mechanics, of rolling for which tile type is placed on exploration, worked really well. But the balance of what tiles are available is clearly off for what 3 players should experience. As the above image shows, the 55 tiles took the entire length of the table we were playing on and we actually needed a second table to hold the quest boards.
The game lasted 11-13 rounds. I was counting this time, but I think I missed a couple counts. 11-13 seems a reasonable count to me, particularly for the number of keys in the game. Having one key complete every 2-3 rounds sounds like a good rate. However, the fact that the game took almost 2 hours makes me wonder if this is really a good range for 3 players.
Conclusion
Biomes has definitely been improved from prototype 3 to 4, more on why later. Preliminary statistics about this prototype show it to take too long and be prone to having too many tiles to engage with. More data about game length is needed to establish enough of a trend to respond to. Some easy changes can be made for 4.02, such as reducing the number of tiles available and beginning the game with one active quest, which will help keep the game length manageable while data is gathered.
But statistics do not tell the whole story! Even though many of these statistics are beyond what I was shooting for, the experience was incredibly valuable, and fun! This prototype also illustrated some revealing use cases which existed to a lesser extent in previous prototypes, or not at all. I will share more about these revealing use cases, and what can be learned from them, in a future blog.