Updates on the Current State of A Taste for the King May 2022 Edition

A Taste for the King has been in development just over a year now, in this time it has gone through several revisions but has largely managed to keep its core gameplay loop and theme. The main changes have come from adding and removing supporting mechanics. This post contains an extract summary of the current changes. If you would like to read the full post, please visit the Drentsoft Games blog post.

Current State Summary

Course hints are likely to be staying – Besides basic balancing of action and poison cards in each course I don’t see much change going forward.

Bingo-style menus. I think the bingo style works, it gives everyone a different goal and makes it feel a little more like everyone is playing the same game instead of separate concurrent instances of the game.

Extra poisons shuffled into the deck seem to work well to mitigate memorising a strategy but more testing is needed to see if this shuffling is required more frequently in the game than just at the start.

Extra Actions – I think having extra Distraction and Infiltation works quite well but I’m not too sure about the new actions. While I like the intention of them I’m not quite sure they work quite how I want yet. This can be tweaked and balanced with more play testing.

Discard stealing (Gluttony) – This works really well as a light interaction mechanic that keeps other players engaged out of their turn. I foresee it staying for the rest of the game’s development, it’s just a case of tweaking how it works until it feels optimally good.

Reduced Courses – The reduced course count makes for an easier to play game and allows for the menu to be less cluttered, with larger icons that are easier to distinguish. While I will be sad to see the dishes go, especially as people seem to like the Pochee (poached eggs) and Ryse (saffron rice) I do think it will ultimately help the game.

Rounds – I think limiting the game to 5 rounds works fairly well. While the game usually lasts about this amount of time anyway, it seems to help that there is a fixed limit in case it proves difficult to get the last few cards to trigger the end game. I think sticking to 5 rounds even with a 4 course menu works well as it gives everyone one extra push to get the cards they need. I will likely need to rename the courses for the rounds to reflect the removal of Sides from the game. Perhaps renaming it as some sort of Encore or Aperitifs.

Secret Message – While this card is currently being tested with a mild revision, I suspect it may need some more tweaking before I can consider it finalised (more about this in a future post).

Extra Indicator Cards (First Player and Glutton) – While I don’t really foresee the need to replace these I would favour replacing the Glutton card over the First Player card as the First Player card has the dual purpose as the round tracker and I think it works well with both functions.

Global Modifiers – I’m slightly sad that there isn’t room for this mechanic in the card count as I think it could add some really interesting chaos into the game. I will keep it in mind as a potential expansion mechanic in the future, along with several others (some of which have partially made it into the game in other forms). I do think the game has hit its mechanic limit, especially in terms of card-based mechanics. It may be that this can be introduced as an expansion mechanic but this depends on how much complexity it adds to the game, potential card count for both the global modifier deck and any other cards that come as part of the expansion. If there are not enough cards to produce the expansion I would rather not make it and I don’t want the expansions to add so many extra mechanics that the game becomes bloated.

If you would like to play test the game in its current form feel free to join the official Drentsoft Games Discord server or hit me up during a Twitch stream and we can test it. In fact bring some friends and we can try to break it with as many people as possible!