Sequence is a fun little RPG/Rhythm indie game that does quite a few things that I'd never really seen before. First of all, obviously, it combines the RPG and Rhythm game genres - your character has three slots of equipment, levels up, and learns spells, but the combat itself is done as a rhythm game - 3 panels of falling arrows (DDR style) control the enemies' attacks (you only ever fight one at a time), your mana generation, and your spells against the enemy. It's quite a fun system, and a very interesting hybrid of two rather divergent genres.
Of course, the game isn't without its flaws. I, personally, am not a fan of how they handle crafting - using experience points as your crafting material means that you have to lose stats in order to gain stats - and if you get unlucky in the crafting system (which gives you a higher chance of successfully crafting something the more experience you spend on it), you can end up losing more stats than you gain by equipping the item you just spent 2 levels making. Admittedly, this doesn't happen too often, but the luck-based and experience-sucking crafting system just don't sit all that well with me - I don't like depowering myself just to make progress in the game - or to give myself questionable stat boosts from newly made equipment
On top of the luck-based crafting system, you also have a severely luck-based item-collection system. All of the materials you need to make your items are random drops from the enemies, each of which can take 2-4 minutes to defeat. Getting the one specific item you want can be a major pain, especially if you need 6 of them for everything you want to make, they have, say, a 60% drop rate, and enemy that gives them is feeling stubborn about handing them over. It can make the game incredibly frustrating.
With all that said, though, despite its distasteful luck-based and experience-sucking game mechanics, the mechanics do come together to form a fun, cohesive (if occasionally frustrating) whole that works just fine as a game - especially a $5 one. One particular other feature I like about this game is the method of unlocking spells - you have to complete a minigame (well, really it's just the main combat but with only one panel, and certain conditions placed on your success) in order to unlock the spell, even once you've assembled the scroll that can teach you it. It's a fun diversion, and makes unlocking a new spell a more dramatic and fun affair than it would otherwise be. With that said, it does require experience to attempt to learn a spell (though there's a practice mode, as well) and I was playing on a difficulty where I didn't really have problems unlocking them. If the spell-unlocking minigames had been harder, then I might well have found them extremely frustrating rather than fun diversions. Also, I would personally ditch the xp cost for attempting to learn a spell and just let you try until you win.
And, of course, I should comment on the main combat itself - while the RPG elements of the game may not be handled the way I think they should, the combat itself is very entertaining. You jump freely between the mana generation, enemy attack, and your attack boards - you have to choose your spells to cast to damage your opponent, then jump over to your attack window and hit the arrows to make them actually cast, while stopping your opponent's attacks from hurting you, all while regenerating mana in your extra time by using that board. It certainly keeps you on your toes, and is altogether quite fun. One of my few complaints for the combat would be that it can go on too long, and losing by time out is quite frustrating - but you do gain experience even if you lose, so it wasn't a complete waste of time. Additionally, random effects in each floor of the world keep combat fairly exciting as well.
All in all, I really enjoyed this game, especially considering the fact that it only set me back five dollars and that it gave me a little over 10 hours of solid fun. It's flawed, but then again, many fun games are - and its flaws don't spoil any of its core mechanics.
Notes:
-Don't make everything luck-based. It may be a decent way to extend your game, but there are other, less frustrating ways to do the same thing.
-Using experience points as currency is risky proposition, especially if there's a chance that they'll just be flushed down the drain with no reward. I don't like it.
-Blending RPG with another genre can be a surprisingly simple affair - just make combat into the second genre, and make the RPG mechanics work with the combat. It sounds like a cop-out, but it can actually work quite well.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Design: Tetris Platformer
So, over the summer, I took a Game Scripting class. In it, I made a tetris platforming game that I have since expanded somewhat upon, and am still in the process of expanding. Currently, development is in somewhat of a lull - classes are picking up, and I've gotten to a point where I'm fairly happy showing what I've got, even if it doesn't have the full game structure and all the features it will eventually have. It can be found here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/45496374/Tetris%20Platformer%20-%209-30.zip
Anyway, the basic concept is Tetris - that standard falling blocks, lines clearing that we all know and love - but with the extra twist that in addition to controlling the falling blocks, you control a person inside the tetris well. That person can move and jump, and it's the person's goal to avoid being crushed by the tetris blocks. This, in itself, is fairly easy - but enemies also occasionally fall from the sky into the well, necessitating extra movement there as well. Lastly, pickups that give you points also fall from the sky, meaning that you want to shape your blocks in such a way that it is possible to get to the falling points and away from falling enemies.
It's a fairly simple concept, but it's a lot of fun to play - at least I think so, and I've gotten pretty positive feedback from others. In its current state, it has 3 modes and two difficulties - normal mode, which is a standard tetris well, lava mode, which covers several bottom rows of the well in lava, making it much more difficult for the jumping person, and water mode, where your movement is slowed, jumping ability increased, and you have to get bubbles at least once every 25 seconds or you will drown. Increasing the difficulty decreases your ability to jump, meaning that in standard and lava mode, you can only jump up 1 tile's worth of space (as opposed to 2), and 2 tile's worth in water mode, in which you can normally jump three. Your movement speed is also slowed slight in the harder difficulty.
The initial project in the class was to pick some sort of old, arcade-style game and put your own unique twist on it. I, obviously, chose Tetris. I wanted a puzzley game that wouldn't be too hard for me to make yet could be of a high enough quality - once I put more time and effort into it - to go into my portfolio. I think that I've somewhat accomplished that, but I still definitely have plans to push this game further.
I intend to add sequences of levels that you progress through one at a time, which get harder and harder. I intend to add more types of enemies - ones that shoot, notably - and powerups for the little guy at the bottom. The three modes that currently exist will become "endless" modes. Obviously, the graphics will be improved at some point in here, as will the sound.
I tried to apply the principle of putting the player in an unexpected role in a familiar situation with the design of the game - something that I've found can be quite fun. It's a basic principle of media design, after all - be predictable, but also unpredictable.
In the end, I think that I've created something here that could help me to get a job by showing off my design and scripting skills - something fun, interesting, and at least somewhat original. I hope that anyone reading this enjoys the game as well. Once I make more progress on it, I'll be posting a revised version with exciting new features.
Anyway, the basic concept is Tetris - that standard falling blocks, lines clearing that we all know and love - but with the extra twist that in addition to controlling the falling blocks, you control a person inside the tetris well. That person can move and jump, and it's the person's goal to avoid being crushed by the tetris blocks. This, in itself, is fairly easy - but enemies also occasionally fall from the sky into the well, necessitating extra movement there as well. Lastly, pickups that give you points also fall from the sky, meaning that you want to shape your blocks in such a way that it is possible to get to the falling points and away from falling enemies.
It's a fairly simple concept, but it's a lot of fun to play - at least I think so, and I've gotten pretty positive feedback from others. In its current state, it has 3 modes and two difficulties - normal mode, which is a standard tetris well, lava mode, which covers several bottom rows of the well in lava, making it much more difficult for the jumping person, and water mode, where your movement is slowed, jumping ability increased, and you have to get bubbles at least once every 25 seconds or you will drown. Increasing the difficulty decreases your ability to jump, meaning that in standard and lava mode, you can only jump up 1 tile's worth of space (as opposed to 2), and 2 tile's worth in water mode, in which you can normally jump three. Your movement speed is also slowed slight in the harder difficulty.
The initial project in the class was to pick some sort of old, arcade-style game and put your own unique twist on it. I, obviously, chose Tetris. I wanted a puzzley game that wouldn't be too hard for me to make yet could be of a high enough quality - once I put more time and effort into it - to go into my portfolio. I think that I've somewhat accomplished that, but I still definitely have plans to push this game further.
I intend to add sequences of levels that you progress through one at a time, which get harder and harder. I intend to add more types of enemies - ones that shoot, notably - and powerups for the little guy at the bottom. The three modes that currently exist will become "endless" modes. Obviously, the graphics will be improved at some point in here, as will the sound.
I tried to apply the principle of putting the player in an unexpected role in a familiar situation with the design of the game - something that I've found can be quite fun. It's a basic principle of media design, after all - be predictable, but also unpredictable.
In the end, I think that I've created something here that could help me to get a job by showing off my design and scripting skills - something fun, interesting, and at least somewhat original. I hope that anyone reading this enjoys the game as well. Once I make more progress on it, I'll be posting a revised version with exciting new features.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Chibi-Robo
Chibi-Robo is a very amusing little adventure-platformer (heavy on adventure) game for the Gamecube. The basic premise is that you are a tiny robot whose duty it is to serve a family - and of course, the family is lovably dysfunctional. Not only that, but all of various stuffed animals, action figures, and the like are alive, and usually even more dysfunctional than the humans - the disturbingly nectar-addicted teddy bear, for example, really takes the cake.
Anyway, the actual gameplay consists largely of fetch quests, platforming (often in the form of exploration), and timed minigames. These are quite entertaining - the platforming is aided by the ability to hover briefly, as well as the ability to move around various blocks. You are limited in your ability to explore by your energy - your every action drains Chibi Robo's energy, which can be recharged by plugging yourself into the wall. You also are limited by the day-night cycle, which changes relatively rapidly. The people and other denizens of the house do different things during the day and night.
Your two currencies are a basic form of money, which is used to buy various things to aid and enable exploration, as well as power a very plot-important robot, and your family's love, which increases the amount of energy Chibi-Robo has. These are accumulated not only by doing various quests, but also by mundane things like taking junk to trash cans and wiping up mud. The game, funnily enough, actually manages to make cleaning fun, by offering an immediate reward of one or both of these currencies, which have quite tangible effects in the game.
Beyond the basic game mechanics, the sidequests are intriguing enough to keep you wanting to do them (especially since many of them are accomplished by exploration, taking you to fun places), the gameplay fun enough, and the characters quirky enough to really keep you interested. On top of that, the setting, a house, is a rather odd one for a platformer, and the possibilities for exploration within it keep you going.
To sum up:
-Quirkiness is good, especially if fetch quests are a large part of your gameplay. If you have relatively standard gameplay, spice up the setting and the characters.
-Unconventional settings can work quite well, especially for platformers and adventure games. Having a main character that isn't human lends itself quite well to this, so don't be afraid to run with it.
-This may seem basic, but exploration is plenty compelling if you know that you'll find things in nooks and crannies. I'm not saying that every game needs exploration, but there's a reason that adventure games still exist, even if they're a bit rarer than they used to be. This game is a great example of compelling exploration.
Anyway, the actual gameplay consists largely of fetch quests, platforming (often in the form of exploration), and timed minigames. These are quite entertaining - the platforming is aided by the ability to hover briefly, as well as the ability to move around various blocks. You are limited in your ability to explore by your energy - your every action drains Chibi Robo's energy, which can be recharged by plugging yourself into the wall. You also are limited by the day-night cycle, which changes relatively rapidly. The people and other denizens of the house do different things during the day and night.
Your two currencies are a basic form of money, which is used to buy various things to aid and enable exploration, as well as power a very plot-important robot, and your family's love, which increases the amount of energy Chibi-Robo has. These are accumulated not only by doing various quests, but also by mundane things like taking junk to trash cans and wiping up mud. The game, funnily enough, actually manages to make cleaning fun, by offering an immediate reward of one or both of these currencies, which have quite tangible effects in the game.
Beyond the basic game mechanics, the sidequests are intriguing enough to keep you wanting to do them (especially since many of them are accomplished by exploration, taking you to fun places), the gameplay fun enough, and the characters quirky enough to really keep you interested. On top of that, the setting, a house, is a rather odd one for a platformer, and the possibilities for exploration within it keep you going.
To sum up:
-Quirkiness is good, especially if fetch quests are a large part of your gameplay. If you have relatively standard gameplay, spice up the setting and the characters.
-Unconventional settings can work quite well, especially for platformers and adventure games. Having a main character that isn't human lends itself quite well to this, so don't be afraid to run with it.
-This may seem basic, but exploration is plenty compelling if you know that you'll find things in nooks and crannies. I'm not saying that every game needs exploration, but there's a reason that adventure games still exist, even if they're a bit rarer than they used to be. This game is a great example of compelling exploration.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time
Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time is a very entertaining third-person action-adventure game (or third-person shooter, both describe it fairly well), with heavy puzzle and platforming aspects. I enjoyed this game quite a bit. It was the second Ratchet and Clank game I have ever played (with the first being Ratchet: Deadlocked). The game was very clever, which I think is ultimately what I liked most about it.
First of all, I really like the guns. While I realize that most of them
are carryovers from previous Ratchet and Clank games, they nevertheless are very solid and fun. There are a wide variety of guns - ones that hit the major archetypes of guns, such as pistol, sniper rifle, shotgun, and rocket launcher, as well as such additions as the gun that opens a portal to an alternate dimension, which tentacles come out of to attack your opponents, a sonic-powered frog with a strong aoe attack, and a gun which launches heat-seeking sawblades. While they are not perfectly balanced, each weapon has its niche, and each weapon is quite unique. Even the relatively generic weapons are customizable in addition to being able to be leveled up, making them unique while still being familiar.
Secondly, the puzzles were something that I really had never seen before. In them, you can set multiple versions of your character to accomplish different tasks, which would combine to solve the puzzle by activating various switches simultaneously. You do this by recording your actions, and then interacting with the recording. For example, in the simplest one, you record yourself standing on a button, then play that recording while standing on a different button. Since your past self is standing on the first button and you are presently standing on the second, both count as being pressed and the door opens. It is, again, very clever.
Those two things were my favorite parts of the game, though other things are fairly clever about it as well - I'm particularly a fan of the hoverboots, which affords you speed at the cost of exact control (and sadly, you automatically take them off when you equip a gun) Personally, I'd love to see a game where you constantly control like Ratchet with hoverboots, except with the ability to use guns as normal. The general level design, boss design, and other accessories are fairly clever as well.
Long story short:
-Be unique. Be inventive. For instance, put interesting twists on your most basic guns - but don't sacrifice usability to do so. Same with puzzles - it's fine to just make you hit the switch, but put a clever twist on it and it suddenly becomes fun and fresh.
-Moving fast is fun, particularly in an environment that seems to exist to primarily work for slow people. This goes back to an idea I touched on in regards to Geist - breaking the rules that a game seems like it should have (even if it doesn't) is fun. Platformers are about moving slowly and carefully - make the game fast instead. That's what Sonic did, and he did it well. Play with genre conventions.
-Time manipulation in puzzles is fun, if done right.
First of all, I really like the guns. While I realize that most of them
are carryovers from previous Ratchet and Clank games, they nevertheless are very solid and fun. There are a wide variety of guns - ones that hit the major archetypes of guns, such as pistol, sniper rifle, shotgun, and rocket launcher, as well as such additions as the gun that opens a portal to an alternate dimension, which tentacles come out of to attack your opponents, a sonic-powered frog with a strong aoe attack, and a gun which launches heat-seeking sawblades. While they are not perfectly balanced, each weapon has its niche, and each weapon is quite unique. Even the relatively generic weapons are customizable in addition to being able to be leveled up, making them unique while still being familiar.
Secondly, the puzzles were something that I really had never seen before. In them, you can set multiple versions of your character to accomplish different tasks, which would combine to solve the puzzle by activating various switches simultaneously. You do this by recording your actions, and then interacting with the recording. For example, in the simplest one, you record yourself standing on a button, then play that recording while standing on a different button. Since your past self is standing on the first button and you are presently standing on the second, both count as being pressed and the door opens. It is, again, very clever.
Those two things were my favorite parts of the game, though other things are fairly clever about it as well - I'm particularly a fan of the hoverboots, which affords you speed at the cost of exact control (and sadly, you automatically take them off when you equip a gun) Personally, I'd love to see a game where you constantly control like Ratchet with hoverboots, except with the ability to use guns as normal. The general level design, boss design, and other accessories are fairly clever as well.
Long story short:
-Be unique. Be inventive. For instance, put interesting twists on your most basic guns - but don't sacrifice usability to do so. Same with puzzles - it's fine to just make you hit the switch, but put a clever twist on it and it suddenly becomes fun and fresh.
-Moving fast is fun, particularly in an environment that seems to exist to primarily work for slow people. This goes back to an idea I touched on in regards to Geist - breaking the rules that a game seems like it should have (even if it doesn't) is fun. Platformers are about moving slowly and carefully - make the game fast instead. That's what Sonic did, and he did it well. Play with genre conventions.
-Time manipulation in puzzles is fun, if done right.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Devil Survivor: Overclocked
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor is an excellent strategy RPG for the Nintendo DS. It combines the usual strategy RPG tactics-ness with more traditional turn-based combat - whenever you attack an enemy, the game switches to turn-based combat where you can select your moves and try to exploit your enemies' weaknesses, in classic Shin Megami Tensei style. I'm personally a huge fan of the game - the unique take on strategy rpg, the many different demons and the ability to customize them, and overall fairly good pacing and pretty solid game balance. But today, I'm going to be talking more about the new features of the remake than the game itself.
As I said, the original Devil Survivor was for the Nintendo DS, but the remake, Devil Survivor Overclocked, is for the 3ds, and it adds a number of features. It enhances the graphics, adds demons and skills to further refine the game balance, adds achievements which track the various things you have accomplished, and perhaps most importantly, adds additional content in the form of an extra day (the first game consisted of seven days of story) for three of the five endings.
Remakes, ultimately, serve a few different purposes. Commercially, they target two groups - people who never saw the game the first time around, and people who played the game the first time and enjoyed it enough to buy it again with enhanced features. To target the first market, the game has to make a splash, and most certainly have current gen features and graphics. Thus, the graphical overhaul which Overclocked received. Sadly, Overclocked did not make good use of the 3d effects on the 3ds - most of action takes place on the bottom screen, limiting the 3d to the intro and a brief, generic demon fusion animation. In that way, I think it was somewhat of a failure - it is unlikely to draw too many new players in if they know that it doesn't even take advantage of one of the 3ds's main draws.
In terms of improving the game experience, however, the game performs quite well. The rebalanced demons and abilities are fairly well done, with only a few mild exceptions. The biggest draw, the eighth day, is a bit disappointing in that only three of the five endings have it - in a game where the morality is supposed to be somewhat subjective and no path is the right or wrong path (mostly), adding bonus content to some of the paths and not others effectively punishes you in the gameplay for perfectly fine story decisions. This, obviously, isn't ideal, and while the problem existed in the first game as well to a lesser extent, it's exacerbated here. With that said, the choices in which you get no bonus content still wrap up their storylines effectively, and the lack of bonus content isn't too bad, but it's nevertheless fairly annoying. Additionally, the 8th day content that does exist is quite fun and well-made, and doesn't feel simply tacked-on.
All in all, this is certainly the definitive version of Devil Survivor, and I enjoyed it very much and strongly recommend it to anyone who has a 3ds and enjoys strategy RPG's. Here's what I garnered from the experience of the remake:
-While not updating the game's assets to match the current generation for a remake does not take away from the game itself, it makes it less likely that a new player will be interested in the game. Ideally, you want to make the game physically match the current gen.
-New content added in a remake shouldn't feel simply tacked on and should integrate naturally with the existing game.
As I said, the original Devil Survivor was for the Nintendo DS, but the remake, Devil Survivor Overclocked, is for the 3ds, and it adds a number of features. It enhances the graphics, adds demons and skills to further refine the game balance, adds achievements which track the various things you have accomplished, and perhaps most importantly, adds additional content in the form of an extra day (the first game consisted of seven days of story) for three of the five endings.
Remakes, ultimately, serve a few different purposes. Commercially, they target two groups - people who never saw the game the first time around, and people who played the game the first time and enjoyed it enough to buy it again with enhanced features. To target the first market, the game has to make a splash, and most certainly have current gen features and graphics. Thus, the graphical overhaul which Overclocked received. Sadly, Overclocked did not make good use of the 3d effects on the 3ds - most of action takes place on the bottom screen, limiting the 3d to the intro and a brief, generic demon fusion animation. In that way, I think it was somewhat of a failure - it is unlikely to draw too many new players in if they know that it doesn't even take advantage of one of the 3ds's main draws.
In terms of improving the game experience, however, the game performs quite well. The rebalanced demons and abilities are fairly well done, with only a few mild exceptions. The biggest draw, the eighth day, is a bit disappointing in that only three of the five endings have it - in a game where the morality is supposed to be somewhat subjective and no path is the right or wrong path (mostly), adding bonus content to some of the paths and not others effectively punishes you in the gameplay for perfectly fine story decisions. This, obviously, isn't ideal, and while the problem existed in the first game as well to a lesser extent, it's exacerbated here. With that said, the choices in which you get no bonus content still wrap up their storylines effectively, and the lack of bonus content isn't too bad, but it's nevertheless fairly annoying. Additionally, the 8th day content that does exist is quite fun and well-made, and doesn't feel simply tacked-on.
All in all, this is certainly the definitive version of Devil Survivor, and I enjoyed it very much and strongly recommend it to anyone who has a 3ds and enjoys strategy RPG's. Here's what I garnered from the experience of the remake:
-While not updating the game's assets to match the current generation for a remake does not take away from the game itself, it makes it less likely that a new player will be interested in the game. Ideally, you want to make the game physically match the current gen.
-New content added in a remake shouldn't feel simply tacked on and should integrate naturally with the existing game.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Magic: The Gathering: Innistrad!
The latest set of Magic: The Gathering just had its prerelease tournaments last weekend, which I attended, and I thought I'd say a few words about the set.
First of all, the flavor of the set (gothic horror), is shown in the cards quite well. Vampires, werewolves, zombies, and spirits (along with humans) are the major players in Innistrad. They each have their own schticks - werewolves transform between human and wolf forms, humans get boosts from various types of equipment and generally for interacting with other humans, vampires suck blood in various ways (gaining power from hurting players, healing the player whenever they deal damage) along with occasionally touching the other archetypal vampire powers (turning into a bat, hypnosis and vampiric conversion), and zombies come in both the garden variety and the frankenstein's monster variant. The frankenstein's monster zombies are portrayed cleverly, and use the graveyard (the mechanical focus of the set) in a clever way - consuming the creatures within it as a requirement to play them (IE, stitching the monster together from the dead creatures).
One thing that I would particularly like to say is that the transformation mechanic for werewolves turned out to be lots of fun. At first, when I saw it, it seemed to be fairly odd and not particularly logical, but after having played with the cards, I enjoyed it quite a bit. They go from human to wolf form when no player casts a spell in a turn, and go from wolf to human when a single player casts two or more spells in a turn. On paper, it seemed to be quite arbitrary, to me, but after having played with them and seen their power, the limitation and interaction of the triggers with the players' actions works quite well. In order to transform your werewolves to wolf form, you have to hold back (most of the time, anyway - you may get lucky and have your opponent play no spells, which is a nice bonus), and in order to force your opponents wolves back to human form, you have to play lots of things, potentially storing up spells to retransform your opponents cards.
All in all, I really liked what I saw of the set. Admittedly, I didn't see that much of it in one night, but I definitely intend to look at it more closely in the coming months. Regardless, the thing I most took out of the prerelease was the following:
-Sometimes, game mechanics that seem clunky at first glance actually work well in practice. Playtesting these mechanics is especially critical - if they don't feel fairly natural to the players in practice, then the players will quickly form negative opinions of them.
-Allowing the players to directly manipulate states of the game by doing things that they would already do, but in slightly different ways than usual, can be quite fun for them.
First of all, the flavor of the set (gothic horror), is shown in the cards quite well. Vampires, werewolves, zombies, and spirits (along with humans) are the major players in Innistrad. They each have their own schticks - werewolves transform between human and wolf forms, humans get boosts from various types of equipment and generally for interacting with other humans, vampires suck blood in various ways (gaining power from hurting players, healing the player whenever they deal damage) along with occasionally touching the other archetypal vampire powers (turning into a bat, hypnosis and vampiric conversion), and zombies come in both the garden variety and the frankenstein's monster variant. The frankenstein's monster zombies are portrayed cleverly, and use the graveyard (the mechanical focus of the set) in a clever way - consuming the creatures within it as a requirement to play them (IE, stitching the monster together from the dead creatures).
One thing that I would particularly like to say is that the transformation mechanic for werewolves turned out to be lots of fun. At first, when I saw it, it seemed to be fairly odd and not particularly logical, but after having played with the cards, I enjoyed it quite a bit. They go from human to wolf form when no player casts a spell in a turn, and go from wolf to human when a single player casts two or more spells in a turn. On paper, it seemed to be quite arbitrary, to me, but after having played with them and seen their power, the limitation and interaction of the triggers with the players' actions works quite well. In order to transform your werewolves to wolf form, you have to hold back (most of the time, anyway - you may get lucky and have your opponent play no spells, which is a nice bonus), and in order to force your opponents wolves back to human form, you have to play lots of things, potentially storing up spells to retransform your opponents cards.
All in all, I really liked what I saw of the set. Admittedly, I didn't see that much of it in one night, but I definitely intend to look at it more closely in the coming months. Regardless, the thing I most took out of the prerelease was the following:
-Sometimes, game mechanics that seem clunky at first glance actually work well in practice. Playtesting these mechanics is especially critical - if they don't feel fairly natural to the players in practice, then the players will quickly form negative opinions of them.
-Allowing the players to directly manipulate states of the game by doing things that they would already do, but in slightly different ways than usual, can be quite fun for them.
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