Dev Log #2, Part 2 - Rulebook

Hi agents!

We had a very historic day as a team the past week because we had our first real disagreement about the game play after an internal playtest on Tuesday with our Rulebook v1. Overall, the gameplay went well and the game concluded successfully with either the Yellow House or the Gooseassin winning. However, we had different opinions on whether players should make statements about their identities before taking actions. Some of us felt this mechanic wouldn't be necessary and might disrupt the game flow, while others think it could guide players to make more strategic decisions based on what would benefit their side.

We will be having another guided playtest session next week to test both gameplay mechanics and gather feedback from players. In Rulebook v1.1, we changed the “weapon” cards to “item” cards, since “weapon” implied that the cards could only be used for attack actions. We also clarified the order of actions and the win conditions for each side to avoid confusion. 

In addition to the rules, we added two optional steps: 

• Players describe their roles after drawing the item cards
• In the scenario where there is no Gooseassin, players must decide whether to trust that everyone is on the side of Yellow House, or doubt that an assassin is still hidden among them

We will have three groups of players for the playtest. One control group that will not use the optional steps, and two experimental groups each testing one of the optional steps. Feedback will be collected through google form, and hopefully by next week, we can reach an agreement on the rules.

That's all for this week! - Zi