Four of five drove into the sea
Our first playtest. Five people, one promenade, a page of notes and a police car that may be too cute. What we learnt, and what we changed the next morning.
On Saturday five people who had never seen the game sat down with it for forty minutes each. We watched, said nothing and wrote everything down. Saying nothing is the hardest part. It is like watching someone assemble a wardrobe you designed, with the instructions upside down.
Four of five drove into the sea
The promenade has a beach on one side and, beyond the beach, the sea. We had assumed people would see the sea and avoid it. Instead, four of the five drove straight into it within the first two minutes, and one of them did it in reverse. When we asked why, the answers were “I wanted to see if I could” and “it looked like a road”.
Both are fair. So the sea now looks a great deal less like a road, and the beach has grown a sea wall with a few honest gaps in it for people who insist.
Nobody read the will
Our opening scene is the reading of the will, with the gramophone, the family and the executor. It sets up everything: the money, the noise, the rules. Every single tester skipped it.
We did not take that personally for very long. People skip what they think is a cutscene. So the reading is now shorter, every line is voiced, and it ends with the whole family running for their cars at once. Vee explains the rest on the way: you learn the rules while you are already driving.
“Can I run over the lawyer?”
No. Not yet. But the fact that three of the five asked told us something about Mr Crane, the executor. He was meant to be neutral. Players do not see him as neutral. We are leaning into that.
The police car
The constabulary of Port Saffron drives tiny round police cars with a single blue lamp on top. Testers loved them. They loved them so much that nobody wanted to hit them. That is a problem in a game where the police are trying to stop you. They are now slightly larger, slightly more square and considerably more irritating.
The numbers
- Average time before the first crash: eleven seconds.
- Average time before the first deliberate crash: fourteen seconds.
- Testers who asked to play again: five out of five.
That last one is the only number we are printing on a mug.