Design Log: Stardate 08.20.2002

Demo Delight

Any Star Trek CCG fan who attended the recent Gen Con Game fair in Milwaukee probably got (or at least watched) a demo of Star Trek CCG: 2nd Edition and a good look at how the game is evolving. And judging by the comments on the entry forms they completed for the shopping spree drawings, by and large, they liked what they saw.

"Simplified setup. Beautiful!!!!" – John, 29, Minnesota
"Easy rules! Yay, no 100+ page rules!" – Michael, 17, Wisconsin
"No seed phase." – Travis, 24, Alabama
"The resource management works well." – Patrick, 26, Quebec
"Cool characters, well written, cleverly created." – Scott, 31, Wisconsin
"Balanced and evenly matched." – Matthew, 18, Michigan

I caught up today with designer Brad DeFruiter, who attended Gen Con in large part to see how 2nd Edition fared at the demo tables. ("Bad, Bad Brad" also acquitted himself Fiercely in the boxing ring, but that's another story.)

"I was really excited to see how many players who had stopped playing first edition, as well as new players, wanted a demo of second edition," says Brad. "The volunteers were never without someone to demo to." And did the demo-ees like it? "We got lots of positive feedback. The most frequent comments I heard were 'This is cool' and 'This is the way the game should have been.'"

"It took the best aspect of 1st edition and wiped out all the complicated stuff." – Dan, 23, Illinois
"[I like] the way it stays like the original game while fixing many of the problems." – Justin, 27, Indiana
"Much less complicated than First Edition." – Keith, 28, Wisconsin

Our volunteers had a lot of interest in the new direction of the game, too – Brad stayed after the Gen Con Volunteer Summit till midnight answering questions about it.

"Much quicker, smoother, easier for me to teach." – Brian, 28, New York (Ambassador)

Not that the new game is perfect yet, of course. "No, it's definitely still in development. Players should realize that anything they saw at Gen Con could change. For example, we know now that a lot of cards need to be reworded for clarity." There are also some tentative concerns about spacelines possibly getting too long (though that might be peculiar to the somewhat artificial demo deck environment) and some games taking too long as players build dilemma combos on the fly. (Currently, if you attempt a mission with six personnel, I draw six dilemmas from my dilemma pile and then select a subset, based on a number on the mission, and choose the order you face them.) So the designers are hard at work ironing out these and other details.

I asked marketing's Sean Smallman, who organized the demo team (and gave many of them himself), about the audience for the demos. It ran the gamut, "Current players; former players who dropped out several expansions ago; people who had wanted to get into the game but hadn't started yet; and people who were not familiar with the game at all." Which didn't deter them from picking it up quickly, by any means.

"It was easy to learn." – Mike, 16, Illinois
"The demonstrator could explain the game in under 20 minutes to new players." – John, 19, Illinois
"Wonderful gameplay and easy to learn! Great!" – Mike, 19, Wisconsin

Current and former players were generally quite happy with what they see as positive changes – improvements – to the game. In fact, says Sean, "One current player admitted after the demo that he came with the specific intent of finding things to complain about." But by the time the demo was over, "He had completely changed his mind."

What changes did these players specifically like? "The lack of mission-stealing and redshirting – they feel that will curb a lot of abuses, with Lack of Prep and The Big Picture being built into the rules. They liked the elimination of objectives and incidents, which are consolidated into events." What else? "Just look at their comments on the entry forms."

"No seed phase." – Andrew, 17, Illinois
"The interactive play with the dilemmas." – Cliff, 37, Illinois
"No seed or outpost phase." – Steve, 31, Minnesota
"No attack restrictions!" – Michael, 26, North Carolina
"Adherence to the TV shows." – Adam, 22, Wisconsin
"No seeding." – Roxanne, 52, British Columbia
"The resource management." – Daniel, 17, Indiana
"Missions from hand!" – Allen, 44, Illinois
"No seed phase." – Tim, 27, Michigan
"Special abilities." – Ben, 24, Tennessee
"You start the game right away!" – Eric, 30, Illinois
"The ability to spend your resource points as you choose." – Caitlin, 20, Massachusetts
"No seed phase." – Matthew, 28, Minnesota

Did I mention that there's no seed phase?

My personal favorite comments came from three players who really know what is important.

"Got to play Romulans." – Jim, 34, Michigan
"It has Romulans." – Robert, 17, Wisconsin
"Romulans." – Glenn, 29, Illinois

But maybe it's all summed up best in this player's assessment of what he liked most about the game:

"The easy gameplay... Being fun is obvious." – Steven, 19, Wisconsin

Kathy McCracken
Major Rakal
Star Trek Intelligence Officer

August 20, 2002

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