The in-the-moment goal of playtesting and demoing games you’re not finished with is to get feedback on the core mechanics before you invest too much time on the wrong ones.

With Disco Candybar, I’ve been testing the core combat system with a very wide range of player types. This is mostly to make sure that the backbone of the game is equal parts accessible (for players new to this sort of game) and deep (for players who’ve seen and done it all in their time as gamers). The overarching goal is a game that gamers can play, enjoy a lot, and then introduce to friends who are just beginning their journey down the board games rabbit hole.

Before yesterday, I’d gotten feedback on the current model from people with several years of gaming experience, people who told me they’d never tried anything much deeper than Uno, veteran Magic players, and even one fellow game designer whom I’ve known for years. My results had been pretty encouraging.

And then yesterday I was able to bring in another friend as a guest reviewer. Andrew Stiles is an industry veteran with plenty of fantastic designs under his belt. Most recently, he released Wine Cellar with 25th Century Games. Back when I was working at The Op, I got to see several of his other games that I’d love to someday add to my personal collection (any publishers reading this, ask him about that trick taking game that he showed me, it’s great!).

When I announced in January that I was no longer at Ravensburger and was considering making some new board games, Andrew was one of my first designer friends to reach out and say, “we’ve got to collaborate on something”. While I’m not to the point yet where I think Disco Candybar is ready for a co-designer, I absolutely feel like getting feedback from someone like Andrew now is the right move, so last week I reached out to him and set up a call.

Turns out, Andrew was an especially great critic for this particular project. I knew going in that he’d quickly be able to “see the Matrix” and recognize the gears that keep the game in motion. Early into our call though, he told me he didn’t actually have a lot of experience with adventure games; they’re just not a genre he often seeks out. This was… great news! For me, this meant that he’d be able to give pretty insightful notes on all of the things I’d been working towards — accessibility, depth, clarity, function, and fun. If the game had decent appeal to someone who might not have picked it up from a shelf unprompted, I knew I was hitting some good notes.

After our expectable “Great to see you again!”s and “How’s it been going?”s, I gave him some background on the game. Roughly equal parts story-driven adventure and (hopefully) fun, streamlined combat scenarios. Co-op play versus the game. Gradual character growth. Distinct character play styles, and so on. All the good stuff. Then we dove into the combat system.

I showed him my digital prototype. Andrew’s in Chicago, I’m just outside Seattle. God bless whoever decided the world needed ways to play board games long-distance on their computers, because it really is a great way to stay connected to friends, and it’s invaluable these days for broadening your testing and demo pool with new game designs.

We looked at the components, and went over how they all fit together. There were points where before I even got to explaining pieces, he saw why the game needed a thing, and that that’s what those pieces were for.

We played through a fight against a bunch of monsters. Things went smoothly, with only a handful of questions from Andrew in the first two rounds. By round three, I asked if he’d be comfortable “teaching me” how to play the game, and he walked me through the steps pretty flawlessly. More confirmation that this was accessible.

When we got to the end of the fight, he paused to put together a thought. “There’s not a ton of choice in some of what’s happening so far, and I want more. But that’s okay right now; this is chapter one of the game, it’s the place where someone learns how to play. I think this is like a seedling. But as a designer, I want to jump to the end and see the real depth. I want to get into the top branches of the oak tree this can be.”

“This can grow into a pretty good oak tree.”

I did not expect that, and it was one of the best things I could have heard from anyone, let alone a seasoned pro like Andrew. Seriously, it filled a lot of spoons for me, and it makes me that much more excited to see this through to a bigger game experience.

It also made me realize that there’s another question I’d been almost reaching, but not quite. That’s “how big do you think this project can get?”. I know how big I think it could be, but I’m biased and well inside the process behind it all.

If another designer can look at this, and with only the first battle and 20 minutes of exploring the core mechanics see a much bigger picture of it, I’m doing something right.

Of course Andrew had other suggestions and ideas where I could tune things. Maybe this routine over here could be broken into smaller parts instead of one big, general stroke. Maybe Goblins are just a few degrees too fantasy themed for non-adventure gamers to start with, and something like wolves might be more accessible in the first encounter. Maybe I could reduce the “mathiness” of tracking things by putting health counters/chits on characters and enemies, and remove them as they too damage. All of these are really valid things to explore with further tests and other designers. I’m adding those to my list.

By the end of our conversation, we came back to the idea of collaboration. My own read right now is that Disco Candybar isn’t quite where I want it to be before I start tossing it back and forth, but I want to get it there. When Isaac Childress started work on Frosthaven, he knew from the start that he wanted guest designers to create some of the dozens of scenarios for the game. After talking with Andrew, I think that’s something I’d like to do with this. Eventually.

Pretty sure I know one of the first designers I’ll be calling for that.

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