First playtest of Stupor Market [In the Lab]


We playtested Stupor Market at local German restaurant and bar Ingrid's Kitchen. (Great food and drinks as usual.) Findings:

* During the reveal, holding up your word next to your card made it much easier to tally points. Definitely including that in the rules.

* Being clear about how to phrase point scoring is particularly important. Easiest way to explain it was as "Bonus" points. "You get one point for every food you guess correctly. You get a bonus point for every player who guessed your food correctly, but not if they all guessed correctly. In that case, you only get your standard points, but not bonus points."

* I had an occasional advantage because I knew which foods were in the deck, but I was still perplexed by some of the words. "YALLER BUR PEDDER?"

* 30 seconds feels like a good time limit. No need to be randomized, but may need to increase for more players.

* A low-budget version of the game would be just a deck of food cards, retailing between $5 and $10. Advantage would be low cost of production and a strong position in the party game market.

* A fancier commercial product would include the food cards, dry-erase boards, markers, and timer. Possibly a score tracker and tokens, too. ~$25 That'll make it more difficult to prototype. Alternative to dry-erase would be printed pads a la Yahtzee.

Overall, the game seems promising! It was a fun filler with a pretty small footprint. I may need to expand the initial deck with more foods to increase replay value, but I'll stick with fruits and vegetables at first.

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