Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Well, Pol, if we're ever at a tournament together, I'll be sure to stay out of your "bro-ing it up," if that's how you feel about us womenfolk. Seriously, how rude! 

In all honesty, I tell my female friends all the time that Redemption tournaments are great places for girls to hang out with real gentlemen. It's so nice to have a place to go and have fun with guys who are respectful and gentlemanly but don't lower their competitiveness when playing me. That being said, if I hadn't grown up in a Redemption community, I probably wouldn't find the game all that appealing now because the complex strategy, costliness, and male player dominance would be huge turnoffs.

That's my two cents.

~Britta 



 

complex strategy, costliness, and male player dominance would be huge turnoffs.

That is the problem.  While costliness per say isn't a draw, collectibility is and some of the efforts to reduce costs to the average player make it not as collectible.  Even more important imo is that complex strategy is a big draw to a lot of players.  The efforts to make T2 more "fair", level the playing field, etc. have lessened the complex strategy and made it less interesting for some.  Just to clarify, I don't mean that more complex rules are good; I don't know anyone that wants more complex rules just because you can have them. 

So of course you have different groups of people with opposite interests; what makes the game better to one also makes it less to others.  Sometimes you just have to pick your target audience and go for that.  I don't see any way to appeal to all groups equally.  The only option I do see is that you have different categories designed to appeal to different types of players.  I used to think that was largely what sealed, type 1, and type 2 were for.  Sealed was the less complex, less costly option.  Type 2 was the more costly, more complex option.  But it seems like they've tried to move away from that and make them equally accessible.

The way things currently are, I think it could be good for the game to have a faster playing (best out of 3 in 45 min?) simpler version, that is more accessible to new players.  At the same time that kind of play will eventually bore me and others who enjoy things like long chess games, Axis and Allies, etc.  For comparison, I have played multiple Magic games with up to 7 people in the commander format (100 cards, no duplicates) and they can last up to 5 hours.  I know my wife would fall asleep or tear her hair out but for me it was great fun.

P.S. the reason my wife stopped playing was because of all the rule changes.  It was challenging enough for her to learn the rules once and it wasn't worth her time or the frustration to have to keep relearning the rules.