Nothing like the last minute...

It's been almost 2 months since BGG.con, and I'm FINALLY working on Winds of Fate! Spielbany is next weekend, and I was planning to send the game to be played (by Zev) there. Nothing like the last minute to spur productivity, huh?

In thinking over some of the issues I'd been having with the game in the last couple of playtests, I think I've come to some conclusions. For those following along at home, here are the things I've decided:

* I need to make Player Aids listing the turn sequence and reminding players that they are Fates and NOT Odysseus.

* I think I might like to separate the 2 colors of cards into 2 decks, and when you draw cards you choose which deck to draw them from (any combination). I feel like there needs to be more control over which color cards you get, because those cards are used to make your bets good.

* When passing without playing any cards in an Adventure, you are allowed to change your Destiny bet. I'm going to add that you can instead add a bet chip to your Destiny bet if you like. Of course you'll have to have a bet chip to do this.

* I'm going to use the endgame bonus of 1vp per pair of Help/Hinder cards in hand and see how that goes.

* I was considering relating the number of crew lost to the result of the card play for the adventure. As yet I've preferred the random number dictated by reward tiles drawn, which is set before cards are played and can therefore factor into your decision as to which cards to play. It does make sense to scale the number of crew lost based on the outcome, but I think the game is better served with the info up front. This factors heavily into a decision I'm making for the endgame as well, so it'll have to stay. I do think that perhaps some crew should be lost even if the Adventure is won, but I'm not sure the best way to go about that. Maybe a simple 1 crew? Maybe additional crew is lost if the Hinder-minus-Help result is more than a certain number? I'm not sure.

* I am considering making the board bigger - 4 columns instead of 3 (still 3 rows per column). I probably won't do that this week though, as I expect it'll be a lot of work to redo the board and make more encounter tiles... but I do need to consider it because I fear the game isn't really lasting long enough for the Stranded option to really come into play. I'm also considering Stages... the first column would be Stage I, the 2nd and 3rd columns would be Stage II, and the 4th column would be Stage III. Then the bigger effects of Encounter tiles could be placed in the later stages, making for more of a story arc. Also, it's a sneaky way to keep 2 tiles I like, one teleports to the other, and the 2nd teleports to Ithaca, short circuiting the board... I'd like to keep that latter tile out of Stage I, and this method makes that easy to do. For this idea I'll have to make 5 more Encounter tiles that are thematic and interesting.