For this playtest, we wanted to work on the core gameplay loop of pitting two players against each other and having them act out videos on a randomly selected topic. These are the notes I took during play:
- There needs to be an easier way of generating the round robin bracket automatically, or we need a different match-up structure.
- Players need Youtuber names generated for them (or maybe they can select from pre-generated ones or come up with their own)
- Roleplaying adds a lot to the game, so the videos should be heavily “acted out”
- I’ll bring my fake plastic ukelele next class.
- Videos should have a 30 second time limit on them.
- The “debate” portion when players are acting out their videos should be in this order:
- Youtuber 1, Youtuber 2, Youtuber 2, Youtuber 1
- One player suggested finding ways to simulate other people involving themselves in the drama, such as comments, or other streamers
- The themes deck should be more silly, since players might actually not want to discuss legitimately controversial topics
- Judging Players can wager up to three follower tokens for the Youtuber of their choice. If that player wins, then the Judging player makes back twice their bet. Otherwise, the followers are lost. The wager amount does not affect the probability of a DMCA Strike.
- Judging Players can throw their support behind a Youtuber to lessen the probability of the DMCA Strike by 1/10 (or 2/20) points.
All in all, this playtest was super successful. Players really enjoyed roleplaying and coming up with stories surrounding the “rumors” we gave them. Going forward, we will implement player cards and hopefully replace the d20 with a spinner that can be adjusted based on the proportion of players.
