On day 1, I pitched the initial proposal for doing Metroid, and pitched the basis for structuring our analog game as a 3v1 dungeon crawler. I discussed some possible mechanics and alternate ideas with my group members and we ended up leaning towards a similar approach to “Betrayal” with its room building. I began designing our rule set at home based on those core concepts, and came in the next day with tons of ideas.
On day 2, I drew mock card designs on Procreate for the three main locations: Brinstar, Norfair, and Tourian. I also pitched the rule ideas to my group, making tweaks and changes based on their suggestions. We discussed good playtesting etiquette and devised some questions focused on player enjoyment and ease of understanding.
Our questions were roughly: At what points (if any) was the game reaching a complexity which broke enjoyment? Did the 3v1 system feel balanced or sway towards either side, and why? And did each team (Samus and the Pirates) feel like they had enough agency during play, or was any team feeling restricted or weak?
On day 3, I made major contributions to our rule set and designed 19 cards, including our character cards. During the playtest, I noted how players generally took one or two rounds to get into a groove. Some players felt the rules were too deep or too complex, while others appreciated the complexity and simply felt there was a learning curve at the beginning. We got great feedback to create a “legend” to denote certain special gimmicks like door types, hazard types, etc. We also initially gave each player their own separate decks, but in not being able to label the backs due to the integration of item rooms, we decided to have all players draw from one big deck for simplicity’s sake. One final thing is that some players felt combat was too weighted against Samus, so rather than giving both parties a d6 die, we gave Samus a d6 and enemies a d4. All in all, our players really enjoyed the experience and gave some great answers to our questions.
On day 4, it seems the playtests went much smoother, though there was some slight confusion about Pirates being able to place rooms *and* use an ability on the same turn. The misunderstanding about Pirate play left some players feeling a lack of agency, but we resolved that issue for our final playtest. Overall, our feedback was even more positive the second time around and I am proud of how well we could design a game which stays true to the original while having a unique spin.
Photo 1 showcases the character cards I created alongside the starting map and the item rooms. Photo 2 was taken just before our first playtest to show the basic gameplay system. Photo 3 was taken before our second playtest, showing off some improvements we made like including a “legend” and designated spaces for easy card drawing.
