Expansion – Page 2 – Encounter Table Games

First All-Up Playtest Complete

I took advantage of the long Easter weekend to do some all-up playtesting of the expansion content I’m working on for Close Encounters. Of course I’ve tested all the bits of it before, in various combinations, but I hadn’t done an all-up test of everything at once. This testing cycle was also special because I was getting the perspective of some testers who haven’t seen any of the new content before, so it was a good opportunity to throw everything together and see how it went.

Tactical Choices

Oddly enough, this post isn’t about the tactics people use when playing Close Encounters. I’ll talk about that another time, because it’s an interesting topic in itself, but today we’re going to be looking at something different: representing tactics in the game.

The Testing Continues

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.

Expansion Pack Contents

A month or so ago I shifted my development focus to expansion packs for Close Encounters. In some earlier posts I mentioned my thinking about them at the time, and then later on that I had more to think about in that respect. As I mentioned then, one issue is that there’s a great deal of content which could be added to expansion packs. How to package it, and what to include in each package, is a topic I’m constantly chewing over in the back of my mind. I think I’ll probably end up making some changes to the structures I’ve talked about already, although I’m not sure yet what they’ll be.

The Agony of Choice

In the last few posts I’ve been talking about my plans for expansion packs for Close Encounters, and that’s where my development effort has been focused. Once I started getting to grips with it all, however, I found that there was quite a lot of stuff that could be included, and I started wondering if my plans for what goes into each expansion would cope with that.

Work In Progress – February 2021

With Close Encounters complete and marketing for it underway, my development focus has shifted to an expansion pack for it. For the moment, I’m prioritising what I think of as “Strapped and Packed” – an expansion which includes heavy weapons for the troopers, equipment cards for them to use, and some bigger and nastier bugs to oppose them!

Alternative Expansion Splits

In the last post, I talked about my current thinking on how to split up the expansion packs for Close Encounters. I think the plan there would produce good results for both me and customers. However, I’m not married to the idea. Here are some of the alternatives which are lurking at the back of my mind.

Expansion Packs Update

Close Encounters is now pretty much finished in terms of development. I’m still making occasional tweaks to the phrasing of some of the booklets, but it’s all basically finalised. While I work on marketing for that, I’m also putting some of my attention into expansion packs for it.