It's going quite well. The most recent iteration successfully attacked the biggest problems of the previous versions (mostly the cards at auction often not feeling worth bidding on). We overshot and the current version feels like things are too wingy, to the point where you often feel like the top of the deck, without much input from you, is what decides the victor. As such, auctions feel less like "how much is this card worth in this board state?" and more like, "can I afford to let the other player have this card at all?" We want to get the block for Hostile Takeover (the standalone game if anyone's unfamiliar) to the point where - like we feel the current High Stakes block is - players are in situations where they're thinking "I believe this card is worth 3 gold, but probably not 4".
This is going to involve both scaling down the impact of the cards slightly (it's a fine line to walk between cards being exciting to bid on, but without a significant number of cards adding so much power that you're in major trouble if your opponent gets them).
We've also decided to try out cards that affect the auction, such as a card that you can later swap out for any card in the auction without having to pay for that one (the new card, you've got to buy the original one of course). The concept was mentioned earlier in this thread, and it just feels awesome. We're finding most cards that affect the auction directly feel good (such as rearranging the cards via scry-like effects to control the bidding, cards that let you auction additional times if you so desire and cards that get stronger whenever you win an auction).
After we get our next iteration tested, I'm certain we'll be talking about it more on Remaking Magic.
We've also decided to try out cards that affect the auction, such as a card that you can later swap out for any card in the auction without having to pay for that one (the new card, you've got to buy the original one of course).
Hey, that sounds like Sushi Go! I love that game! The primary tension in that one is in the moments of "well, I don't actually want this piece of sushi... but can I afford to let the player to my left/right have it?!" But with chopsticks you can just be like "HELLO FRIENDS, I have now collect all the wasabis. You get none wasabi!"
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This is going to involve both scaling down the impact of the cards slightly (it's a fine line to walk between cards being exciting to bid on, but without a significant number of cards adding so much power that you're in major trouble if your opponent gets them).
We've also decided to try out cards that affect the auction, such as a card that you can later swap out for any card in the auction without having to pay for that one (the new card, you've got to buy the original one of course). The concept was mentioned earlier in this thread, and it just feels awesome. We're finding most cards that affect the auction directly feel good (such as rearranging the cards via scry-like effects to control the bidding, cards that let you auction additional times if you so desire and cards that get stronger whenever you win an auction).
After we get our next iteration tested, I'm certain we'll be talking about it more on Remaking Magic.
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