Before this project, I always thought that systems games meant lots of pieces, rules, components, and mechanics. As such I assumed that we’d build something functional and strategic for class, but nothing that felt genuinely meaningful and accurately represented a system. I didn’t expect the game to feel grounded in something human or recognizably emotional. However after the first draft, I knew that something was clicking. 3 out of the four of us were not aware of how a musician’s system worked, but slowly iteration after iteration we started appreciating the system more and more.
It was very interesting to see how much the game changed after we started thinking about how the players experienced the system that we gave them, rather than just how many parts we could add. Although technically our early prototypes played fine (even though it took a really long time for players to learn the rules), everything just felt a little boring. Only after we tightened the structure (fewer components, clearer incentives, and mechanics that actually bounced off each other) that the whole game started behaving like a system.
The most interesting discovery during development was watching the multiplicative scoring formula (TS × SS × AS) transform player behavior. Initially, I designed straightforward additive scoring, but playtesting revealed players simply maximizing one dimension (drafting the highest technique cards and ignoring city preferences entirely). The shift to multiplication created an emergent ecosystem: suddenly, a player with moderate technique but perfect style alignment could outscore someone with raw stats but bad city matching. Also when players started reacting to tradeoffs that we didn’t explicitly state caught my attention. Playtesters debated on investing early or saving their resources, whether to specialize or stay flexible, whether to risk a short-term loss to set up a stronger late game.
There’s a lot that I’d take away from this game. The main part has to be simplicity is the key, and this comes in two ways. First, less components that are very intentionally placed is better than lots of convoluting components. If players take 20 minutes to understand the rules, their interest in playing is lost. Second is that small design changes have huge effects (like our multiplication system). Overall, I think I learned the most out of this game, and I had a great time building and testing it with my team!
