A couple of weeks ago I tweeted a new hashtag (#guildballfieldtest) to start conversations about what, if any, changes we wanted to look at for Guild Ball. This article digs a little deeper into explaining how this process is going to work and what the possible outcomes are.

If your first question is “Why do we even need a field test, Guild Ball is perfect?” I hear you and get where you are coming from. To address this, I recently posted a lengthy article explaining the high-level thinking behind why we need to take a look at the ruleset and current ‘balance-point’ of the game in the Guild Ball Supporters Facebook group and got a huge response, which was amazing!

It should be stressed that tweaks/changes to the ruleset aren’t the only aspects of the Guild Ball product line I am looking at. Other areas obviously need some TLC too but I will only talk about these when I have actual updated information to share. Right now I am in talks with 1) retailers and distributors discussing their requirements for a successful product line, 2) manufacturers to look at new ways of producing minis and 3) the Champions and the wider community, to assess the best direction to look towards in terms of having fun chatting with each other about the game we love.

Full article to follow in due course, but the Champions scheme is a new program being cultivated and grown carefully (in simple terms, it’s a natural evolution of the Pundits program). These are an amazing group of people whose love and engagement with the hobby overflows; and so, they provide all kinds of assistance and support to help other people discover and get into our games (and beyond).

The process for the GBFT is to be kept super simple; the less moving parts, the more likely it is to be successful. It follows a classic test cycle:

Community Analysis Listen to what people are saying

Identify common threads

Identify pinch-points/needs

Identify opportunities/ideas Content Draft -> Technical Review -> Final Draft Assess community analysis against project/product goals

Pull together a coherent first draft and publish internally

Review with designers, developers and Champions

Incorporate feedback Publish Final Draft published to community

Go to Step 1

Pretty simple right? So this hopefully explains why I dropped a #GuildBallFieldTest a couple of weeks ago as part of the first Step 1? Since then, we’ve had some brilliant conversations (and some bad ones too to be fair) that have enabled me to assess a lot about our community and to identify a lot of common threads and ideas.

On a monthly basis I will look to publish the ideas and rules changes that I’d like to be field tested. The material presented will be for playtesting only and is there to spark conversations and your imaginations. The mechanics will be in draft form only and will not have been refined by final game design or editing.

Supported by the Champions, I will be keeping a close eye on all conversations, feedback, playtest results and measuring the impacts on the game overall. It would be amazing for you to share your thoughts…if you do so, it makes our life so much easier if you give your response a clear name or label and where possible refer to those labels used in the GBFT draft document each month.

We’ll then fold that data into the next draft and publish to start the cycle again. Each updated draft will include commentary on the key pieces of feedback and the changes we have made.

Occasionally we will use an online survey to help further our understanding of the impact of any proposed changes. I don’t know how long this will take but I’m estimating anywhere between 3-6 months.

There are a number of possible, and valid, outcomes from this process:

We conclude that Guild Ball requires no changes and continues ‘as is’.

We decide that Guild Ball would benefit from some changes/tweaks and we look to move to Guild Ball 2nd edition.

We discover that the changes required are more fundamental and will alter the identity of the game so much that it is effectively a new game.

Ultimately, as Creative Director, this is my call…but I am lucky to have an amazing team who I work with closely to help me with the decisions that need to be made.

Everyone is welcome to take part and contribute of course, but let me share a quick word of advice; it is way more productive (and fun) if we don’t instantly reject another person’s ideas. We actually have a hard rule here in the SFG Design & Development team…the word ‘no’ is flat-out banned! We don’t do this to create an environment of blind approval; we actually do this to keep our thinking open to an idea, which then forces us to bottom things out rather than just instantly reject them. Regardless of industry, in terms of effective communication in a team, saying ‘no’ immediately creates forces a conflict in order to continue the discussion and this is absolutely the worst environment, especially for design/creative thinking.

That’s it really! Next week I’ll publish the first set of rules I’d like to see feedback on, see you in the threads…

- Mat Hart