Backyard Astronaut: Inspiration and the value of honest playtesters

Recently, Dice Hate Me Games announced that they were holding a contest for 54 card games. I thought it would be fun to design a game for the contest.

The Inspiration
The idea for my game came from my interest in space travel, rocketry, and space in general. More specifically, I have been playing a PC game called Kerbal Space Program where you operate a fictional space program on the planet Kerbin. The Kerbonauts are little green guys who invented the rocket before they invented the wheel. It's a hilarious and fun game.

The other inspiration was a short story I read in the Jan 2013 issue of Asimov's Science Fiction magazine. It was called "The Family Rocket" by James Van Pelt. It's narrated by a man who is bringing his future wife home to meet his family. His family owns a junkyard, and as a kid, his father took them for a vacation in a rocket he built out of parts from the junkyard. In the story, the narrator comes to realize that the entire vacation was faked by his father for the sake of his children.

I thought it would be fun to build a game around this idea of an amateur rocket enthusiast who cobbles together a rocket out of parts from the junkyard. Whether it actually flies is of secondary importance.

The Design

Designing within 54 cards was fun and very limiting. I settled on a system where you would have various parts that could be added to your rocket. Each part could be placed in certain locations on the rocket, depending on the part. In the end, you would score points for the different parts you have on your rocket.

The parts fall into 3 categories:

Propulsion: Fuel tanks and Engines

Science: Scientific instruments

Utility: Parachutes, winglets, solar panels, maneuvering devices.

There were also Friends that you could play to gain some ability in the game. This was intended to increase player interaction. 

The placement of the parts should be logical. I used colored borders to indicate where a part could be placed. A fuel tank can be placed anywhere, and have other parts attached to it, while a solar panel can only be placed on the sides of a rocket and can't have anything attached to it. You can't attach anything on the bottom of an engine, and you must place a standard engine below another part.

Great...You build a rocket. But it's still not a game. Points, that'll fix it. So I came up with a point system.

Propulsion: a factor of number of engines and number of fuel tanks.

Science: Grows exponentially as you add more unique science instruments

Utility: Points based on the dimensions or composition of your rocket.

Finally, I cobbled together a system of drawing and buying cards so you could obtain cards.

With that figured out, I created the cards, printed them out and then subjected my good friends Ed and Jeremy to a test. 

Playtesting

This is the point in the story where a designer has to drop his ego and let others tell him how non-brilliant his idea is. I am blessed with some good Level 1 friends who feel perfectly comfortable dashing my hopes and dreams. I think I take criticism well, so this is a good thing.

Basically, the feedback I got was that there wasn't much in the way of decisions or strategy. The mechanism for getting more parts was convoluted and didn't help the game. The points weren't terribly well balanced. My attempts at introducing player interaction failed completely. The best thing about the game was that it was kinda fun to build and design the rocket. The test went really quickly (too quickly) and ended with Jeremy clobbering us both. Ed and I barely kept our heads above water.

Jeremy suggested adding suits to the cards to add another dimension the game.

Ed suggested adding some public scoring conditions to add variability and interaction

We also decided that a new way to pick up cards would be good, something more thematic.

Overhaul

I took their feedback and ran with it. I added 3 suits (representing brand, or color of the parts). I would use these for additional scoring calculations.

I adjusted the scoring on the parts to try to balance things better

I came up with a junk pile system where you have 4 piles of face-up cards, and players can spend up to 10 points during the game to dig deeper in the piles to get the card they want.

All information in the game would be public information.

I ditched the friend cards in favor of adding public scoring conditions that change with each game. These fall into 3 categories, and during each game, you will have one goal from each category:

Race to the pole: First person to do X gets the points (first with 3 engines, first person to spend all their digging points, etc...)

Most: Points at the end of the game for having the most of something (tallest, widest, most engines, etc...)

Suits: Points at the end of the game based on the suits of your cards.

 

Another Playtest

I tested it again at another game night. Ed was there to test again. I also got my friends Ben and Paul to test it. Ben is a really great playtester who never pulls punches. To my delight, it was much better. 

• The face up junk piles provided a lot of analysis and player interaction. Do you wait for a part to surface? Or do you pay points to dig into the pile to get it before someone else does?
• The public goals provided a good secondary target for players. It wasn't just about optimizing your rocket, you also had to pay attention to the suit of the cards you (and your opponents) were taking. You could alter your strategy to get the first to the pole goal, or you could just ignore it and work on something else.
• Ed was very emphatic that he liked it a lot better. 
• Ben had some good feedback about limitations on part placement.

There were a few balance things to work out, but it was 100x better than the first time around. 

End Result

The resulting game is a public information game. Picture yourself watching over the fence as your neighbors build a rocket.  You race to the junkyard to try to get the parts you want before they do, even willing to spend more than you have to in order to keep the parts away from them. You're trying to build a better rocket than them.

On a turn, players can pick up a part from the junkyard. If it's on top of a pile, it's free. If it's under the top, they have to pay points to get it. They can add it to their rocket, or keep it in reserve. Players can also scrap parts for points by putting them back on top of a pile. There are three public goals that all play differently, giving players something to work toward. And the parts themselves score points based on the other parts you have on your rocket. 

I'm really pleased with the result of this game. In a short time, I was able to put together a game that my friends and I had a lot of fun playing. I am so grateful to have good Level 1 friends who can help make better games. Thanks guys! and thanks Dice Hate Me for running a great contest!

If you're interested in reading the rules, you can find them here: Backyard Astronaut Rules

If you want a PNP, let me know, I can get one to you.