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Re: [piecepack] On Feedback and Reviews


On Mar 16, 2007, at 8:51 PM, Eric Wald wrote:


Jorge Arroyo wrote:
First let me make this clear: I won't deny that the motivation for this message has been in part the lack of feedback for my latest piecepack game. 
I admit I'm a bit disapointed because I was quite excited about it.


Dungeon Builders?  I might try it sometime.  I didn't notice any
problems in the rules, other than the standard misspellings and grammar mistakes (though I question the prohibition against blocks of four tiles 
together), so I hesitate to comment further until then.
I'm not an english native speaker, so even the standard misspellings and grammar corrections are welcomed :)
I want to stress that this thread is not specifically about my game, I'm just being honest and not pretending that the lack of feedback on my game is not one of the causes to start this thread. But it certainly is not the only one. What I'm saying is that piecepack games not only should be tried out and played, but commented on. Feedback is needed to design better games and for new players to find games they might like.
But that's not the main concern. This post is also motivated by the lack of comments and reviews in general in the piecepack community. I'm also 
guilty of this myself.
So, I ask, why? Is it time constrains?, do we all have our favorite games already? are game groups reluctant to try new games? Are we hesitant to give 
negative feedback for a game?
It does take time to play a game, and even more to learn a new one. In my game group, which hasn't been meeting as regularly lately anyway, I'm 
really the only one excited to try new things, so it tends to be much
easier to pull out an old favorite. Unfortunately, my wife usually gets 
annoyed when I win games, so that rules out most two-player games
In addition, many games get ruled out for us due to genre mismatch, lack 
of equipment, or lack of the specific suits or sizes required.
Finally, it takes time to write up a review and submit it to the proper place. Since game night tends to last well into the night, and the next day is usually filled by weekly chores, I haven't been good at all about 
reviewing games.
Well, detailed reviews would be excellent, but even a small comment after a game can be useful, for the designer and for the people looking for a game. Something in between a session report and a review explaining the mechanics a bit, doesn't take too much time to write, and can give a sense of what to expect from a game...
I went ahead and started today with Black Pawn Trucking. I've just finished playing a game, and have written some thoughts in its wiki page. I'll try playing it a bit more these next days and might update the comments if I feel the need...
As a sidenote, Is the Icehouse community much bigger than the piecepack community? I see many more new games and feedback comming out of it... 

 What do you all think?


The Icehouse system has much lower barriers to entry:
* The pieces are much simpler, and you need fewer of them.
* Paper pieces work extremely well for most games.
* The games tend to be easier to learn and play.
* A very simple game is available in stores for a reasonable price.
* Several piecepack games need icehouse pieces anyway.
* A supervised two-year-old can have fun stacking pyramids.

It's probably telling that Treehouse was an almost immediate hit among
my group, whereas my piecepack tends to elicit an "Oh, no."
I agree. My girlfriend would rather play a short game of Zendo or Volcano than almost any piecepack game right now... And my son (almost 3 years old) really likes to play Treehouse, although he doesn't understand what to do to win very well, he enjoys rolling the die and moving the pyramids... 


Perhaps we should follow that lead and create one or more simple games
that use just the pieces from a single suit:  One pawn, one die, six
tiles, and six coins.  Preferably four or five games, each themed to
work really well with a different suit.  Then market those for about
seven dollars apiece, without over-emphasizing the system.
I'm not so sure about that... most of the piecepack games use the system of 1 suit per player. Selling only one suit separately would be like when icehouse pyramids were sold by stashes of 1 color (and each player could bring their own stash). The equivalent to Treehouse would be more like a simplified piecepack with less tiles per suit... but I'm not sure it would work either...