Posted by Caroline
Playtesting continues for Marc’s latest project, the archaeology game currently titled Pottery Shards! Marc, Ben, Fred, and I had a great time testing out a new gameplay loop that really helped focus our world-building and felt organic and fun. Marc’s been patiently iterating on this design for just over a year, and it feels like we’re really getting close to the final rules!
The People of the Flood
We decided to study a brutal and ambitious civilization that resided beside a desert river. Our archeologist discovered one site with three artifacts that offered us a glimpse of the People of the Flood.
The Site
As first player I had the honors of describing the site. I made a tall cone made of hewn sandstone, with an underground tunnel entrance. Fred then got to describe what the site was used for. Since it floods each year, people swim through the tunnel opening to perform an annual soul purification ritual in the dark pool within the cone. Finally, Ben painted a picture of what this looked like – it’s all beige now when we look at it, but in the past the archeologist imagines it being painted brilliant colors against the desert tan.
The Artifacts
Marc introduced our first artifact, a large stone ball with three spikes protruding out of it, kinda like a spiky tripod. I got to describe its use. Our archeologist decided it was probably used as a sacrificial statue, symbolizing the evil you wanted to purify. Fred described the people hauling the statue as they would swim through the tunnel, a dangerous and difficult task. The statues get left at the bottom of the pool, making it more and more dangerous to enter.
We continued playing that loop format – one player introducing an artifact, the next player saying what it was for, and the last player sharing a little vision of what it looked like long ago. We created a series of carvings at the top of the cone, which were peoples’ ambitions for the year. Our archeologist imagined people climbing over one another to just barely reach the top and carve their hopes in the dark. And then we created a door that had bones in it, because of course people died during this ritual and so were buried within the walls. In fact, sometimes instead of bringing an evil spirit statue, you came with someone else to fight to the death. In the water. In the dark. Hey – we said they were a brutal people!
Onward
We only had time for that one full round. If we had kept playing, we would have gotten to move on to a new site, and discover new artifacts there. I’m excited to see how Marc keeps honing the rules and the text, and so happy that we are now in the ‘fine tuning’ stages of the design!