Postmortem

Project Description

Love is War is a card game where you and your non-fellow rivals capture as many love interests on the field as possible - the ultimate capturable target being Keanu Reeves. Each of the targets are labeled from 1-5 stars and whoever wins 15+ star points first will win the game. The other win condition is if all targets are used up, the player with the most points will win the game. For each round, there will be a “Mediator of Love”, a judge who will determine the winning trait card of the current round after listening to the players argue for their card. During that round, they will not participate in claiming any targets themselves with one single exception. The position will go around clockwise to the next Judge when they place down the next two targets. At the start of the round, each of the players receives five cards in the hand. These cards consist of “trait cards”, “action cards” and a “special action card”. Trait cards will be played to fill in the blanks of targets. If the category of the trait card matches the blank requirement, the player will keep the trait card to count a bonus star point. Some action cards can be used to benefit you or used against players. The special action card can only be used by the Mediator of Love to join the battle for target claiming, but they can only go for one. In this situation where this is no judge, it is an all-out-war where all rivals argue for their card.

What went right

• The core mechanic of people arguing/debating worked and it was fun to play in playtests
• The aesthetic is unique and contributes to the overall feeling of the game
• The humor is successfully delivered 
• The current distribution of cards work
• The pacing & length of the game is pretty good 

What went wrong

• A lot of our initial core mechanics didn’t work (this wasn’t regarding letting players debate, but the extra mechanic of charm points that, a lot of the time, inhibited players from claiming targets)
• Some targets were impossible to get at times due to requirements
• It was difficult to engage in too many arguments with people you do not know (lack of great incentive)
• Sometimes bad shuffling that destroys the game (some players would only get actions cards while others wouldn’t get any)
• The rulebook was not clear enough, therefore, some players didn’t look at the rulebook carefully before playing the game

Future Goals

• Fix the distribution of cards (perhaps decrease action cards?)
• Create a better rulebook with more clarity and illustrations (something more digestible)
• Make the blank requirements more open, so more players can place cards
• Create different targets for different expansions (COMIC-CON)

What we’ve learned

    Playtesting is a really important thing that helped us change our rules & mechanics. Every playtest we had, we discovered flaws in our game’s mechanics and looking back we made a lot of significant changes from our original prototype.

    We also learned that the wording of the rulebook is essential to the understanding of the rules & mechanics. During the last playtest, players still have questions when playing the game even though they’ve already read through the rulebook.