Mutant Pizza

Hello there, Otherworldly Beings—

I was recently able to get the latest build of Escape the Entity to the table for a playtest. I got a lot of good feedback, which has given me good direction on what to do next with the game. I’ll share my thoughts on the changes I’ll be making. But first, I want to go over what this build looks like.

I discussed my reasoning for getting to this prototype in my prior blog article back in August, linked below for those interested.

Okay, let’s talk about the current build. Warning: You’re about to see an officially janky prototype.

Behold, An Encyclopedia Page A Player Mat!

Escape the Entity is a two-player game of cat-and-mouse set in space. I’m going for a mix of Alien, Star Trek, and classic “sea monster” mythos with the vibe. One person plays as the Puddlejumper, a ship delivering technology that can protect star systems from the Entity, a malevolent and voracious creature that has been feasting on this sector of space. The Entity knows that this ship spells doom for its hunting grounds and wants to destroy it, or at least consume a system before the Puddlejumper can reach it.

You may have guessed that the Entity is our “cat” in this game of cat-and-mouse.

The Entity has the power to change space itself, creating various anomalies that hinder or damage the Puddlejumper on its way to save a system. Let’s take a look at the arms at the Entity’s disposal.

Allow me to summarize all of that info for you…

The Entity’s terminology

The way it works

I use a few thematic terms to describe abilities in the game and sometimes used overlapping terms to describe other conditions.

I also changed “Blips” to “Nebulas” to appear more thematic.

The problem

The Entity player found the thematic terms confusing and couldn’t grasp what they meant, even though they were defined just below the term. Furthermore, I used the word “devour” as a specific action and again in the win condition more casually. It was highly confusing, with the player thinking they had to specifically go up to the Puddlejumper and use the Devour action to win, which wasn’t the case.

They also thought Nebulas were a powerful anomaly to utilize, not just an “egg” to be hatched.

What to change

I’m going to tone it down on the thematic language and use a more plainspoken approach. And I’m going back to “Blips.”

The Entity’s tempo play

The way it works

The Entity is a “tempo” player, meaning they shift between two different states on their turn. Depending on what state they’re in, they have different abilities at their disposal. That’s why as the Entity player, you must use abilities in accordance with your tempo.

Overall, players have found this unique and fun, with a few exceptions.

The problem

Although the tempo play is fun, the Entity has no control over when they change states. It just happens at the beginning of the turn.

I especially noticed that when the Entity is just about to secure a win, they’re thwarted by not being in the correct state, which is something they mechanically can’t change—they have to wait.

What to change

Giving the Entity player control over when they can change states, at a cost of Dark Energy, will give them more freedom to strategize and manage their resources while still presenting a fun dynamic for them. They need to plan when to change states around how much Dark Energy they have, but won’t have to wait until a specific turn to shift states.

The Entity’s anomalies and abilities

The way it works

The Entity also has a lot of pieces with a lot of abilities. And they have to first put out Nebulas while in the Alpha & Omega state before they can mutate those Nebulas into more powerful anomalies.

The problem

This created a few issues during the playtest:

• It was confusing for the player to understand what they could put out and when
• It made it difficult for the powerful anomalies to be put on the board, resulting in most of them not getting to be played
• Each anomaly has lots of abilities which create decision paralysis or just a lack of ability to strategize

What to change

Well, the most important thing to change is to make it easier to get pieces on the board. The Entity playtester recommended that the game just starts with a bunch of anomalies on the board. I’m not sure I like that approach, though, as I want the feeling to be that space gets more treacherous for the Puddlejumper as time carries on during the game.

Other than that, I’m going to make it less expensive to put anomalies on the board and less difficult to “upgrade” them to more powerful anomalies.

The Entity piece

The way it works

The Entity piece is able to spawn on the board (it doesn’t start on the board) and can move around in Dark Matter that the player puts on the board. It can only move in Dark Matter, which it converts to Dark Energy as it moves through it.

The problem

The Entity player didn’t like not starting on the board and having. to do work to spawn their piece. My theory behind this is they tied a lot of their identity and win condition in just having that piece on the board and felt handicapped by having to spawn it.

The conversion of Dark Matter to Dark Energy and vice versa was also highly confusing for the Entity player. They didn’t quite understand that these things were essentially the same, it’s just they can spend it or put it on the board.

What to change

I think these were the clues I needed to realize that the Entity shouldn’t have a piece of its own. My next build of the game is going to be without the Entity piece. Not only will this make gameplay more simple as the player will have fewer abilities to worry about, but it’ll allow them to focus more on creating anomalies instead of trying to spawn and move the Entity piece around to get things done.

Those are my learnings about the Entity so far from this playtest. In my next design diary entry, I’m going to talk about our brave mouse in this game of cat-and-mouse, The Puddlejumper ship.

Until then, Otherworldly Beings…