Internal Playtesting Notes (10/4) for Scamboo!
“Think like a scammer, learn to defend”. Scamboo! is a card game for ages 13+ where players play a scammer targeting a victim card, so you learn how to recognize scam tactics and apply the right defense.
The setup for this playtest was 4 players, and a full game took about 20 minutes. This is our second attempt at doing an internal playtest.
Observations
- Inconsistent iconography and naming. The icons on the victim cards did not match the icons on the scam tactic chips, and some terms were used inconsistently (e.g., “impersonation” vs. “false identity” – both pointing to the same scam tactic but with different names on different assets). We need to align both the icons and the naming.
- Defense card mechanics were underspecified. It was unclear what happens when a defense card is played, so we need to lay out those mechanics in detail. We also want to check whether the defense card mechanic is too strong or too weak.
- Tactic chip count feels right. The variation of 10 different scam tactic chips seemed to be the right number – more would be too many to track.
- Fixed scammer profile. Our group was discussing whether players should get a new scammer profile card, to keep more secrecy and suspense moods within the game. We concluded that players don’t need to change their scammer profile during the game, and keeping it the same throughout was fine. The tradeoff is that it does lessen the secrecy aspect, since other players can learn each profile over time, but the defense cards already provide some secrecy aspect that we wanted to add to the game.
- Penalty for a failed scam. We also discussed adding a bigger penalty when a player can’t scam someone, but the group agreed that losing skill chips is enough penalty already.
- Perhaps players focus too much on tactics and not victims. Players may read the scam tactic chips but not really read the victim cards. Our intention with the victim cards and giving each victim a story about their weak point (e.g., generous giraffe trusts people too easily, and therefore is susceptible to trusting strangers) was to discuss what weaknesses could be susceptible to which scams. However, in playing the game, it is not necessary to read this backstory. Perhaps these stories are too verbose, and we need to shorten them.
- Game length. We discussed whether the game should end at 10 points or earlier. After playing this round of playtesting, Olu won after 20 minutes of gameplay at 10 points. Our group agreed that 20 minutes felt like a good amount of time after gut-checking through playtesting.
- Chip supply. We considered adding more scam tactic chips, but we agreed that the scarcity of chips actually makes the game more interesting, so we’re keeping the original number of chips. We also want to switch from paper chips to physical chips.
- Chip board. We plan to add a board to hold the scam tactic chips – this way, when we are out of one type of chip, the board would make it clearer (e.g., there will be text saying, out of “Urgency” cards)
- Die. We originally had a rule to roll a die to determine whether a scam succeeded or failed. Although this was an exciting element, we decided this added too much complexity and difficulty in the gameplay.
Anything you’d like to change
After the observations above, we’ve already:
- Aligned icons on victim cards and the scam tactics
- Aligned naming (e.g. impersonation vs. false identity✅, “scam tactic” ✅or “skill”)
- Removed die aspect ✅
- Added indicating number (e.g. x1) for all icons on all cards to clarify chip counts for each victim card ✅
- Changed header of scam tactic chips✅ and defense card✅ (originally, it said “trust trap” for both)
But we still need to:
- Make actual “chips” instead of paper chips, for easier counting
- Maybe give players more chances to get a defense card?
Overall, we had a really fun time playtesting the game and are content with the current game so far! 😀
