I had a great set of demos at KatsuCon this past weekend with some awesome players! Highlights include the Alter Arms player who played a hero with a Stage Magician gimmick, allowing them to tie up opponents with escapology chains and use balloons to gather intel. There was also the Skrap Packs player who combined their metal gauntlet with a potato peeler to make a clawed glove they named “Can I Borrow a Peeling.” Players are liking the assets mechanic, since it allows them to better collaborate on actions. I need to consider how to scale difficulty as a result. There were some instances where players weren’t able to make an impact on the opponents—at least not as much as they would like—without using assets. Assets are a mechanic where characters change the battlefield in some way (causing debris to rain down from a building that was struck, a smoke bomb thrown into the field to provide cover, or cars knocked over to provide cover). During combat, instead of interacting with other
PAX Unplugged and MAGFest were both delightful experiences where I got some great feedback from folks about the status of both of my games. For Alter Arms , I had some minor updates for special abilities, and have introduced tokens into physical play to keep track of turns. For Skrap Packs , I’ve updated some cards and included mechanics for restricting inventory. This has encouraged players to be more considerate of the items their characters keep, use and combine. My current upcoming goal is to work on additional theme cards for Skrap Packs—this time based on medieval fantasy adventures—and setup Skrap Packs for sale on Itch.io by the end of the year. The current plan is to demo both games during KatsuCon 2023 on both Friday and Saturday.