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Designer Notes 2

I’ve finally gotten experienced some initial playtests of the next iteration v4.0. I was expecting things to be a little rough around the edges, but I’m very happy that some of the new ideas are already beginning to really gel.



What’s new in v4.0?


• Clan pledges. You gain the clans during the game (about first 3 or 4 rounds)


• Updated area control. You may have presence, domination, or control


• Introduction of secret objectives. Gain points based on fulfilment of certain requirements known only to you.


• Societies. You can fund a society which rewards top players for meeting their goal.


• Worker placement is now in the mountain. You no longer send the workers to a separate sheet. They are placed directly on the tiles in the mountain.


• Upgradable mines. Where the workers are going can also be upgraded to improve the ability resolved upon sending the worker there.


• Changed simple gear. Now this card allows you to build a construct. Improves game flow markedly.


• Void Core. The end game condition is building a mine on the Void Core. This is the center of the mountain causing the weird properties of the special ore players are mining. The player who built the mine chooses a card which affects all players.



What’s working well?



I think the simple gear change has actually improved the game the most. Secondly the change to area control helps tremendously. It’s an improvement, but at the same time there are a few unclarities to hammer out. The term “presence” confuses players. They think it means the dwarf and not a tunnel. The players have incentive to prevent control, but there’s no incentive to gain domination.



What’s struggling?



It became quickly clear that the secret objectives are too difficult. I now understand why so many games have scalable secret objectives. I want players to not know or be sure if their opponents have fulfilled the secret objective. I love the feeling where people aren’t really sure who is winning until the dust settles.


I would also love to see more players completing the mine on the Void Core. I’ll likely make the size of the mountain smaller to expedite that. I love the idea of a variable end condition, but it’s difficult to design.



I almost forgot, there was a game where a player did not pledge to a clan, even after 5 or so rounds. That was a travesty to me. The player didn’t feel incentivized enough to pledge to a clan. I think because you are receiving them later, I should tune the benefit even higher.



What am I thinking looking forward?



The feedback from Essen ’23 which bothered me most was that there wasn’t enough player interaction. I feel the changes in v4.0 are seriously addressing this issue and that there’s more excitement in the end game. I have some ideas about how to increase the interaction further, while still holding that there is no “direct” interaction in Into the Mountain. I am hungry to see some more playtests and continue developing.



If you've read this far and want to play Into the Mountain on Table Top Simulator, write me a message! I'd be thrilled to hear from you.



DM in BGG (Kevin_Brunner)






Cheers,


Kevin

 
 
 

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