Coalition Design Journal #3: Lessons Learned from First Exposure at GenCon 2022

Me outside the First Exposure Playtest Hall, 8/4/2022

A MAGICAL PLACE

Yesterday I returned home from GenCon 2022 in Indianapolis. Coalition was featured in the First Exposure Playtest Hall, in which I ran four playtests. This was my first time presenting Coalition to complete strangers.

My experience with First Exposure was life-changing. Nothing has ever felt so right to me as being among fellow game designers. Whether they be veterans with several titles under their belts or novices such as myself, they were all incredible people, and each had things to teach me.

It brought me indescribable joy to see people enjoying the game I created. I will be forever grateful for my testers’ enthusiasm for giving feedback and willingness to talk through solutions to the game’s problems.

GenCon is an incredibly stimulating environment for my designer brain. Learning unfamiliar games, being around other designers, and soaking up every fellow con-goers enthusiasm makes a perfect concoction for having great ideas. Most of the groundwork for the first draft was laid out on the car ride home from GenCon 2019. Continuing the tradition this year, I drafted the bulk of Coalition 4.0 on the plane last night while processing playtest feedback.

Now, enough gushing. I will split the rest of this post into two sections: one section where I share some of the roadmap to publishing, based on lessons learned from other designers, and a second section in which I detail the playtest feedback.

Playtesting on 8/5/2022. Thanks for the pic, Kalani!

THE ROAD TO PUBLISHING

Coalition will most likely be self-published. This means relying on crowdfunding on a platform such as Kickstarter or Backerkit. To drive a successful crowdfunding campaign, the game will need a base of enthusiastic followers. The only way to further build that base is to get the game in front of people.

To that end, I am making it my goal to bring Coalition to GenCon 2023 with a set date for the beginning of a crowdfunding campaign. Between now and then, I aim to bring the game to at least three other conventions. One of these three will be the Southern Board Games Festival in March 2023, a small convention in Lafayette, Louisiana (where I currently reside). The other two are currently TBD.

Things are starting to look more serious. As development on Coalition continues, we will be adding members to the Sidereal Gaming team. We already have our illustrator Coco Lincoln, whose work was well-received at GenCon. However, we will need more hands on deck to help with graphic design for game components, as well as extra help promoting Coalition both online and at conventions. Expect to see more of us soon!

Speaking of drumming up a following for Coalition: sign up for email updates here!

PROCESSING FEEDBACK

Below I will summarize the feedback received about the version of the game tested, Coalition 3.2. I will also include some of my own observations.

#1: Addendums aren’t intuitive and have memory issues

Consistently across every test, Addendums were the last thing to click for people learning the game. This will likely remain true, as they are a mechanic wholly unique to Coalition, but there are solutions that could make them slightly easier to grasp.

Firstly, people had to be reminded who got to use the effect on the card. It is a lot to keep track of, since the ability triggering involves two players (the player it was placed on and the player that gets to use it). Secondly, people sometimes had trouble remembering who played which Addendum when several were on the table. Again, this is complicated due to two players being involved in the ability triggering. Lastly, it was hard to tell at a glance the order in which Addendums would resolve, which often matters when cards like Tax Collection or Extort are played.

An additional type of game component could help alleviate all of these issues. The next iteration of Coalition will include numbered tiles for each Council that correspond to each Council seat. When a player plays an Addendum, they will place the tile corresponding to their Council seat on the card. For example, if I am second in turn order, I would place the tile labelled “Two” on the Addendum card that I play.

These tiles will help players remember who played which card, and will help indicate the order in which they resolve. Lastly, they will serve as a reminder that there is more than one player involved in the power resolving, since the card and tile will be placed in front of the player the Addendum is placed on.

#2: Role ability costs need rebalancing

Some playtesters used their Role abilities very little, if at all. Previous iterations of Coalition had no cost whatsoever for Role abilities, leading to unfun spam of controlling abilities like the Knight and the Judge. To solve for this, I added a cost of two Influence to activate Role abilities.

I was happy with how the added cost tempered the most powerful abilities. I never saw the Knight used more than twice in a game. Each time it was impactful, but not abusably unfun.

However, for other less-swingy abilities such as the Whip and the Judge, the cost was too steep. Many players decided that they’d rather just bid that Influence rather than use their powers.

Coalition 4.0 will include variable costs for player abilities, reducing the costs on some abilities while remaining high on other.

#3: Why is Influence typed by Value?

Or, “why are there four different types of Influence?” someone inevitably asked during every playtest. My answer was that: 1. it is an information-sharing mechanic 2. some Role abilities involve choosing a type of Influence to affect. However, to players that did not have a role like the Whip, the reasoning for this was not apparent.

Some testers even argued that I wasn’t using the design space of different types of Influence enough to warrant its inclusion, and said I should not have Influence correspond with Values. I disagree, but I am certainly taking the note about how the design space could be used more.

Coalition 4.0 will make it clear from the outset why Influence corresponds to Value, namely by allowing players to do different things with different types of Influence. This will introduce some extra asymmetry to the game by giving factions different modus operandi. I hope that this allows the flavor of each Party to feel more distinct. More information TBD!

#4: Some rules language needs cleaning up

Most of these were in regards to wording on specific cards. However, it seemed that every card could use reminders about timing of effects (e.g. role abilities being activated on a player’s turn, while Addendums take effect when the election ends). Some players suggested extra graphics to show each phase of the game.

On that note, some sub-phases of the game will be tweaked as well to make some administrative work easier (namely, gaining Addendums).

#5: Smaller games can be punishing

Being a Partisan in a game of less than eight means that you have no teammates. While most players managed fine, some players made mistakes in the mid-game that they were unable to recover from. Without a teammate to fall back on, these players did not have much agency to influence the late game.

It is clear that smaller games need more testing for balance. Coalition 4.0 will be adding a new rule that should make the game slightly less punishing at < 8 players.

One last photo before going our separate ways, 8/7/2022

SPECIAL THANKS

… to all the playtesters who offered their feedback and enthusiasm for Coalition.

… to the crew of Cleromancy Games and their supportiveness.

… to John Hague of Quill Gaming for organizing the wonderful FEPH pub meetup.

… to Evan Halbert and Matt Martin for sharing their sage advice.

… to London of the Fairy Tale Campaign Trail team for being generally awesome.

… to Scott, who helped ensure that my 45-minute wait in the merchandise line was not in vain when I had to leave to make it to an event.

… and lastly, most importantly, to all of my wonderful friends that made GenCon 2022 a truly special experience.

So long, GenCon! Next year, Coalition will be ready to take you by storm!