Thursday, August 3rd, 2006

Sponsored by Looney Labs

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You might assume this delicious-looking slice of cake is a new piece of art for Just Desserts. That'd be a good guess, but this cake is actually for Fluxx Espanol. I'm showing off to celebrate the fact that Alison is just about finished, at last, with the 14 color Cosa illustrations she's been doing, which include Cake (since Fluxx Espanol will include Cake instead of Cookies). So the Spanish version of Fluxx is inching closer and closer to the printer!

But while this cake isn't a Just Desserts dessert, I do have exciting Just Desserts news to report: I've redesigned the game again! And I think this time we really have found the winning formula! The newest way to play has a zing to it that takes it from playable to "Let's Play Again!" Whoo-hoo!

Unlike last November's redesign, you need to make some minor modifications to the cards in order to use Version 3 of the rules for Just Desserts. However, it's very simple (you just need to add a number to each Guest card with a permanent marker) and the reward is a much more fun game to play!

Just Desserts has basically been a problem child. Whereas some of my games (like Fluxx and Treehouse) have popped into my head nearly fully formed, this game has been my most challenging to create (and that includes the months of research that went into my Chrononauts games). I first started mapping out the dessert universe 4 years ago... I remember quizzing family members about their favorite desserts (and making some preliminary cards) at the Looney Family Reunion at Skyland in November 2002. It took a really long time just to work out the structure of the Guests and the tastes they were interested in. I noodled around with these concepts for years. As of last summer, I finally had a deck I was happy with, along with a fairly playable initial version of the rules, so we went ahead and published a limited run of the beta-test edition, with rough black & white art, so we could get more reactions. (A few copies of that edition are still available.)

Then last November, after absorbing all the data I'd been getting from reactions to the Version 1 rules, I came up with a totally different -- and generally better -- way of playing a game using the same set of cards. We've been playing it that way ever since, including during the tournament at Origins, but at the end of the day I had to acknowledge that the play value still wasn't quite good enough. Also, there were elements to the original version which people missed. So I went back to the drawing board... and the result is Version 3, a really nice new ruleset that takes the best of the first 2 versions and mixes them together with some new ideas to create a truly delicious combination. If you've got a beta edition, take it out and try it the new way!

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who's helped me coax the fun factor out of this game over the years. Obviously that starts with Kristin and Alison, and especially includes Josh Drobina, Russell Grieshop, the Wunderland Toast Society, the Mad Lab Rabbits and anyone else who played any version and gave us their feedback (including a special shout-out to Billy Brahma, who put a bug in my ear at Origins about bringing back the stealing mechanism). Lastly, I'd like to give an extra special thanks to Robin Vinopal. She's been our full-time Director of Operations for a couple of months now and she's been doing an incredible job of getting our slightly-too-casual company running like a real business ought to run, which has included setting up a lot of new weekly meetings. Last week she suggested we start having official "Design & Development Meetings" where we can focus on playtesting my new ideas, and these new rules for Just Desserts are a direct result of that. Moreover, since this was Robin's first time playing any version of Just Desserts, she had some excellent insights and once again proved herself to be one of my most helpful playtesters.

Anyway, between these new rules and the great responses we've been getting to our search for yummy dessert artwork, it looks like the long wait for Just Desserts might not take too much longer!