December was a BIG month of breakthroughs for Distilled, allowing things to be more finely tuned and polished, thanks to some dedicated time to playtest new ideas and balance them for fairness and fun. These changes were all thanks to our playtesters providing amazing feedback. If you’re reading this and you haven’t playtested Distilled yet, be sure to join our Facebook group or our Discord Server, so that you can join the party – you’ll not only get credit in the final rules, but also get a chance to help the direction of the game’s development! Here’s a few of the top changes we made to the game in December:
New Approach to Market Purchases
Distilled has always had a “market” – a group of cards for sale in the middle of the table that consist of unique and basic ingredients, items, recipes, and upgrades. Up until now, players would – on their turn – purchase as many cards as they wanted, spending as much money as they wanted. This would often result in Player 1 purchasing 3-5 cards and then refreshing the market, then Player 2 buying 3-5 cards and refreshing, and so on. By the time it got to Player 4, the entire Market had changed. This would cause each player to have little to no investment in this phase and would add long wait times while they acclimated themselves to the (fairly new/fresh) Market of cards. Thanks to some great feedback from playtesters, it was suggested that I try out a “purchase 1 card and pass” approach to this phase, where each player can only buy a single card when it comes around to their turn at the table. That opportunity will come around again after the others have bought their single card, and a player can continue to do this until they pass (after which they’re done with this phase). Once all players have passed, the game moves on to the Distillery Phase. This has now been applied, and had an overwhelming positive reception by players. It engages players for the entirety of the Phase and allows them to (somewhat) plan and prepare for when it comes around to them. We’ve found it has added little to no extra time in the game, and it overall feels *much faster* than before!
Changes to the Spirit Label Bonus Track
At the top of the Distillery Player Board, lies the Spirit Label bonus track. I created this feature in hopes of encouraging folks to show off the spirits they made, while also providing them with an instant, one-time bonus of their choice. Up until now, I’ve had six spots (due to the size of the player mat we were working with), but we realized that we could stack them in order to not only fit 7 spots (for 7 rounds and 7 spirits, the maximum amount you make in the game), but also follow the roofline of the Distillery as well. The seventh spot provides a free Distillery Upgrade and also gives the player a choice between VP or a free card type. So far, the bonus track’s changes have had a great reception by playtesters.
Distillery Upgrades now have Victory Points
This is an example of my design going full circle, as the original upgrades in 2019 also had VP attached to them! I’ve always been a firm believer in rewarding folks for building up their engine – or their distillery infrastructure – in the game. My main motivation to add these is connected to the theme and play style. Do you want to play as a “bare bones distillery” crafting amazing spirits, resulting in big VP (but an empty distillery), or invest in your infrastructure and have your distillery be more about just the product you make, but the experience you create as well? Some of the VP is straight up VP with a capital V (the Rare Spirits Collection (no art for that yet, due to it being so new!), above, will net you a solid 14 VP at game end, but cost you 20!!!!). Other upgrades reward you base on the strategy you pursue, such as crafting certain regional spirits or focusing on barrel and bottle diversification.
Taking Loans instead of Taking Goals
Previously, when a player chose to age their spirit in the warehouse (and didn’t bottle a spirit), they would get to draw two Distiller’s Goals, and choose to keep one. These resulted in some fairly easy to accomplish goals that rewarded the player a few extra VPs. Since aging a spirit often results in high VP anyway, it was essentially adding miracle grow to the VP tree for that player. The richer were getting richer. So, we decided to drop those. But we also realized that since players aging spirits (instead of bottling) often go into the next round with nearly $0, that we could potentially offer an interesting choice in the form of a “loan”, and only allow aging players to take advantage of it. So now, players who didn’t bottle maybe give up 1 VP in order to take a $1 loan (up to $4). We’ve already seen great success in this, and players don’t miss the goal draws at all.
Re-envisioning of Distiller’s Awards and Goals
This is a brand new one (heck, we haven’t even fully tested it yet!), but I’m excited about it’s potential, and feel confident it will result in some nice new improvements. The Distiller’s Awards tokens have always been “global” VP bonuses for whomever achieved them. The Distiller’s Goals cards have always been “private” goals that the player can collect and aim for, revealing them at the end of the game. While the circular token awards have been fairly successful, the private card-based goals have been – quite frankly – pathetic and wimpy. They each were worth just a few VP, players would collect 3-5 in a game, and were easy to achieve. Pretty much every player had nearly the equal amount of VP in their goals at the end of the game. We’re now looking at making these goals have a bit more teeth, with bigger, long-term challenges, strategic choices, and higher VP rewards. Additionally, we’re looking at the circular awards being relegated to just in-game accomplishments (immediate, “first to” bonus VP for whoever achieves it first), so I’m expecting these two goal-oriented mechanics to serve as great counter-balancing levers to each other.
So, as you can see, we’ve been busy! I can’t wait to playtest some of these new features sooner than later, as I’m convinced that it is getting us that much closer to the finished product, which will someday be sitting on your shelves and being played on your tables (with drink in hand, hopefully!). Cheers!