Hey, this game looks fantastic, and I can't wait to play it!

I had a thought about how you keep track of your score. Did you perhaps consider making a score track for this game instead of requiring pen and paper? Was the intent to "hide" your score as you play? (I don't think it says this in the rules.) With a score track, nobody has to worry about whether everyone kept score correctly, it would only require one more token per person, and additionally it'd be another opportunity for more of that fantastic artwork!

I'm tempted to make my own... In your playtesting, what was the average high-score for the game?

Thanks!

Found your game on Saturday and I have to say you guys have one of the coolest games this year. Can't wait to try it out after I recover from the jam!

We managed to playtest this game many, many times during the 48 hours. (We estimate, including partial breakthroughs early on the development, probably over 100). We kept the game short specifically for this purpose. It takes around 20 minutes for new players (not including reading the rules), and we were getting the play down to around 8 minutes at our fastest.

Different ways of playing can produce quite different results, and we often fell into ruts of playing the same way, which coloured our evaluation of the balance. Swapping which side we played regularly helped deal with that fairly well.

The Canker was the hardest to nail down for powers. Originally we had 5 sides, and the Canker and the fifth race occupied a very similar mechanical space (the fifth race gained tokens in defence after placing). In the end we dropped it, and made the Canker "more normal" (originally it started all on the board and grew.)

Once the powers seemed balanced, we had issues with the victory conditions. The map had a big effect on who won. The open map without the barrier favours the Swarm and the Ampulex, while a tighter map favours the Shredder and the Cancer. The single barrier works well, but Max, one of the artists, who drove the graphical tone was never happy with it as a pattern.

The last thing to change mechanically was the victory points for the Swarm. We had them to the point where they could get second, but not win. The current version gives them the victory when they manage to break out and cover a lot of the map.

The game seems to generate a bit of a metagame, where various powers seem overpowered in turn to the players.

The name Saprobiont comes from the name for a species that lives or feeds on dead matter.

The graphic design is based on Art Nouveau, as it was heavily influenced by discoveries in biology. It fits in with the theme of transformation and rebirth.

The flavour text is meant to be reminiscent of either biologists journals, or nature documentaries. Would would an external observer say if he was observing the species of the game.

They are also meant to be a subtle strategy guide to playing the creature, as is the additional name above the species name on the player mat.