Protospiel Online

The January 2025 Protospiel Online conference saw me test five prototypes with board game designers from around the world. In turn, they participated in four playtests of Soccer 54..

Much of their feedback was around the balance of play, distribution of cards, and lack of tactics that could lead to strategy.

But in all cases, the playtesters liked the game play, the unique mechanism of separating the cards, and my color commentary as I watched them score and save goals.

Several ideas I was able to incorporate and test that weekend:

• Remove the requirement to announce whether you are shooting or playing for possession.
• When the deck runs out, give the players one last turn.
• And let players shoot with any of the three shooting cards but only from the final third or in front of goal, not from the midfield.

I got a lot of interesting ideas about the distribution of cards and the lack of agency when you get a bad draw.

• Two got too many shooting cards early that they couldn't use because they didn't have good possession cards.
• Another thought it might interesting to require two decks. 
• I began to think about whether each player would have their own deck.
• And one player wished the low possession cards (e.g. 4 and 5) could have power-up actions on them that made them worth playing, even in defeat.

Then I had a long conversation with a small group about custom playing cards, production, and ideas about promotion. All in all a fantastic conference!