Latest Cuties & Monsters/ Sötisar monster updates/developemnt can be found on my instagram account.
2021-06-03 01:48
Sötisar och monster / Cuties and monsters ( All art/design/rulesystem names are copyright Ushiri Stenberg©2022
Content: 16 cuties, 4 monsters, 2-sided gamemap, 1 manual, 1 box, 1 dice, bricks, cards. Playtime: 60min
This is the background story about my tactical cute boardgame that has more depth than meets the eye. Rules will be available firstly in Swedish and then,German,English.Possibly French & Spanish.The idea for the game came to me at 2014 but I postponed it since I had other projects. I then started development again in 2018 and it has been playtested through 2019 to this date intensly with people I know and not know at all in different groups, also over zoom from different places in Europe. Game evaluation sheets are also handed out both physical and digital to all playtesters. The game is set in my fantasyworld Ushiria.
A new quick way to playtest is over Zoom with shared view of your desktop photoshop
I feelt that I wanted to reach out to my friends over the globe and play with them so I then used my first papercut figures before I made clayfigures and then later on 3dprinted instead and arranged them in layers together with the cards with the boardgamemap in photoshop. I haven´t heard of anyone doing this way of playtesting but I think it´s very practical because you can just share your desktop over zoom,messenger or other media and invite your players. They only need a a dice and a microphone to participate ( and perhaps a bit honesty with the dicerolls if that´s important 🙂 )
Instagram tag: #sötisarochmonster and some videos not uploaded here.
Boardgamegeek thread about Playtesting & Open source developement
Future playtester?
Are you interested in being a playtester with 2 of your friends or over zoom, don´t hesitate to write me at ushiri@ushiri.com
Playtest & combined open-source development
The way I playtest is a sort of combined open source developement variant where all people can speak their creative mind and we directly test it in the game without hesitation. I´m a strong believer that regardless of your own creative ego you can allways take input from others. This can of course be challenging to keep the red thread and not to steeraway from your intended vision of what you want to achive in the end.
Bad gamedevelopement & playtesting
I meet boardgame developers where their ego can´t stand pure clean critizism of bad gamemechanics and when the game suffers of being boring. Playtesting with tons of people is the way to make a good game and not take it personal if someone says they dont enjoy it or just think it´s plain dull. If they say this ask them why and what it is they don´t enjoy to get knowledge of why it does not appeal. Perhaps the game is not for them or there really is a strong truth in what the say. The most important of playtesting is to amass a ton of people that are not your real friends and just random people to get more honest opinions because they are not afraid to hurt your feelings.
Developement so far 2021-06-03: Optimize card text, redraw illustrations on cards bricks, colourize them and continue to develope/edit the layout for the gamemanual. Further playtesting to streamline the cards for the basegame. Add more objects art to the gamemap. Reach out to new playtestgroups that will do ” Blind gametests” which in practice means that they will playtest it with me silently being in another part of the room or sitting over the net watching them play without me.
USHiRi art 