Here at Encounter table headquarters, I’m continuing work on expansions for Close Encounters. The basic outlines of the content, at least in first draft form, are ready to go. It all works… in theory. However, as we all know, in theory, theory and practice are the same thing. In practice, they’re not. That means I have to test the heck out of it all, in varying combinations, to find out how it all interacts and make sure there’s nothing unexpected lurking in the bushes.
So far, I haven’t discovered anything that is a showstopping issue. Some of the equipment items for the troopers turned out to be way more powerful than I had realised, and some of the stuff for the bugs is a bit underwhelming, but those sorts of issues are fairly straightforward to address. Of course there’s a LOT more testing to do. There are a couple of things that seem to be common themes, though.
First up, the ‘feel’ of the game has changed a bit. Close Encounters feels fast and fluid, like a quick-moving skirmish. Some combinations of the expansion content make it feel more like a battle than a skirmish, though – the interactions between the bugs and the troopers feel more constant, as if the sides are trading heavy blows, slamming back and forth as the game progresses. I’m not sure how I feel about this. There’s nothing wrong with the occasional pitched battle, and I don’t want to jump to conclusions. At the same time, though, if this keeps on happening I may have to do something about it. I don’t want the game to turn into a slog.
… which brings me to the second thing that seems to keep coming up – increased cognitive load. Once you start adding expansion content, it gets harder to keep what everything does right at the front of my mind. I keep on getting to the end of a playtest game and realising that I completely forgot about one of the things I had meant to use.
This may be something that will solve itself. As I gain familiarity with everything, hopefully it’ll become automatic and I’ll free up some cognitive bandwidth for other things. It does serve as a good reminder, though, about the importance of limiting how much new stuff is hurled at players. That ties in to what I’ve said earlier about wanting to keep each expansion manageable yet meaningful (I’m paraphrasing a little here). Figuring out how to combine the content to achieve that is going to be an interesting task.
For the moment, though, it’s time to play a bit more. Here’s a photo from a recent playtest session: see if you can identify all the things I’m testing in this game!
Encounter Table Games 