Playtest Post 2 (11/22/2020)

 Playtest Post

Games Played:

  • Plant Potter

  • Start-Up!

  • Hacking Mayhem

  • Variation of Battleship


Game Analyzing: Plant Potter


Formal Elements:

  • Players: 2 (You and your opponent.)

  • Objective: Obtain 20 VP before your opponent does by planting plants and sabotaging your opponent’s garden. (Pretty much a race.)

  • Procedures:

    • Distribute 10 cards on to the playing field.

    • Pick 4 cards out of the 10 on the playing field.

    • Flip a coin to determine order.

    • Play the cards (only 3 per turn!)

    • Keep track of how many plants you have, how many days it’s grown, and how many points you have by writing it down.

    • In the End of Day phase, calculate the amount of points you’ve earned (if any).

    • Redistribute cards onto the playing cards until there are 10 of them again, to start the next round.

  • Rules: Plan your moves accordingly so that you get more points than your opponent.

    • Players start with a medium plant already planted (not grown, so you still have to wait for it to do so).

    • Flip over the 10 cards on the playing field so everyone can see them.

    • To begin earning points, you must plant plants. Plants do not start growing immediately, so you must wait for them to fully grow before earning points.

    • On the turn that a plant turns fully grown, you cannot earn VP yet. You must wait for the turn after that to earn VP.

    • There are two types of cards: the plant cards, and the action cards. Action cards are used to help your plants grow and/or hinder your opponent’s progress.

      • The Cards:

        • Small Plant: 1 round to grow, earns 1 VP every round

        • Medium Plant: 2 rounds, earns 2 VP every round

        • Big Plant: 3 rounds, earns 3 VP every round

        • Seeds: Pick out a plant (if it’s available)

        • Water: Speeds up the growing process by one round

        • Fertilizer: If you have a fully grown plant, you get a free VP.

        • Drought: Delays a fully grown plant’s VP production for one round

        • Gopher: Destroys one plant

        • Shade: Delay a baby plant from growing for a round

        • Uprooting: Destroys fully grown plant

    • There are three phases:

      • Collection: Flip a coin to see who gets to pick from the playing field first. Then start picking, alternating between each player until both have taken 4 each.

      • Action: Each player can play 3 cards from their hand each turn.

      • End of Day: Points and the days plants have grown are counted. Also, put cards on the playing field until there are 10 again.

  • Resources:

    • Plants: You use this to gain points to win.

    • Actions: You can only play 3 cards per turn, so you should choose wisely.

    • Points: What you need to win the game!

    • Time: Before you can get any points out of the plants, you have to wait a certain amount of rounds before it can do that.

    • Action cards: You definitely would want to speed up the growing process, or hinder your opponent’s growing process.

  • Conflict:

    • Depending on your hand, you might not have anything to plant, and thus you could fall behind.

    • You have very limited actions, although as time progresses, you have more choices in what actions you can take.

    • It really sucks that you have to wait so long for the big plant to grow.

    • What can you do to speed up the growing process?

    • What can you do if your opponent has a lot of fully grown plants?

    • Make sure you’re counting correctly!

  • Boundaries: The game itself (a piece of paper and cards?) and maybe a calculator

  • Outcome: Who ever gets 20 VP first is the winner!

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