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A few playtesters have requested player aids or cheat-sheets for Corner Lot. I may be too close to the game to see the wood for the trees: If there were to be a player aid, what would you like to see on it and how would that help you? Would a player aid have been useful to you? If you have played the game already, would it still be useful to you> Would it make teaching the game easier?
Only one of the 40+ players I’ve taught the game to locally requested a player aid, but didn’t have a clear statement of why they wanted one, how it would be useful or what data they thought should be on it (more likely a product of my bad questioning than their fault). My perhaps unflattering impression was that the player aid would provide comfort by re-assuring the player that they hadn’t forgotten any of the core game structures rather than providing data they’d forgotten. Does that about right? What do you think of the need and value for a player aid for Corner Lot?
Comments
I know the list of end game bonuses would be useful for some people. I don’t need a player aid myself, but that’s something I would expect to be on the card (and we almost forgot one category the last time we played, so it wouldn’t have hurt to have an extra reminder).
My request was due to the fact that I had to repeat the four ways to score several times. If there was a player aid card, I think I could have said it once and clarified with an example on the card which the players could refer to for the rest of the game.
The scoring in Corner Lot is not hard, but I don’t recall ever playing a game with similar scoring where the same cards could score four times. I’m thinking that a three card example (miniature cards with a short caption) would be sufficient. For example, Flush: 4RED/6RED/12/RED, Straight Flush 5BLUE/6BLUE/7BLUE. Rainbow Flush: 7GREEN/8RED/9BLUE. Set: 5RED/5BLUE/5GREEN.
Then a statement to the effect of “For each scoring, players receive the number of cards in the set times the value of the highest card.”
A player aid will be well-received on at least the first play with everyone IMO.
However, I suspect this game would do well with casual/non- gamers as well as heavy-gamers. Having a player-aid will go a long way for casual gamers. Being able to visualize bonus conditions is important for some individuals.
For example in our one session, one individual (Paul – who is plays a lot of video games, as well as board games, and does quite well in heavy-strategy board games) was frustrated with the simple and similar color choices of the cards and seeing only numbers. For him, any visual association with values would have gone a long way.
The Schotten-Totten player-aid is a good model ( http://boardgamegeek.com/image/137317 ) as already suggested by Scott.
The player-aid can just be card sized and contain the following:
Turn Structure:
Bid on a property
Purchase the cheapest property or a wild card
Pass
Endgame Scoring:
Flush (example)
Straight-flush (example)
Three-of-a-kind (example)
Rainbow (example)
Okay. The common element seems to be the bonus categories. Cool, that can be done easily enough. But what else is really useful? How valuable would additional data such as a list of the card values (3/4/5/6/7/8/9/12) be? Is listing the 3 possible choices (bid, buy, pass) worth it? What about the bonus is #_of_cards#revenue_of-Highest_card or Cards may participate in multiple bonus categories?
I confess, this request for a player aid has really blind-sided me. Still, it seems well requested and I’ll see what I can come up with.
I think it would be valuable, especially for early plays where it’s easy to forget small details; ie. there is no 1, 2, 10 or 11 values.
Not necessary. Medium-to-low priority.
Yes, definitely. Preferably with examples.
My current thought is something akin to:
With the formatting adjusted to fit on a card.
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