Variety is the spice of life, and Options generally increases potential interest in gaming groups and across different types of people.
Deciding what type of play styles are available in your game could help reach people beyond your initial idea, and encourage you to make parts of your game slightly different in a good way.
For me that decision came when trying to figure out if Legends of Novus should be just a multiplayer competitive game, or if other play styles should be included. After thinking about the way the game plays, and how it could be altered, I felt it could be adapted. So then I had to look at the Pros and Cons..
PROS
- More modes means more accessibility to players, be it solo, duel, or up to five players.
- Easier to share/advertise the game across different FB sites, IG, and Reddit. IE you cannot try to share your 2-5 player game to a solo boardgame group, or a competitive game to a Co-op group.
- Easier to get people to playtest, as some groups will only playtest certain styles of games.
- Ability to produce game cards specific to styles of play (add/remove during game setup)
CONS
- More rules are required to be printed in the rulebook, which creates additional pages (adding to cost of production and weight of shipping, even if it is minor).
- Cost of additional games cards, if created.
- Requires more playtesting than just one version. Each version will have unique rule sets that have to be tested to see if the game is still playable in that format.
- People may interpret the game as going in too many directions, not focused enough on one game style.
There are easily more factors to add to the above lists, but the ones above are the core ones that come to mind when making the decision. I am going to forge ahead with the four versions and see how it is accepted on FB and on KS early next year. If it receives too much negative criticism then it will be a lesson learned and a change to make prior to a relaunch.
Better get to playtesting these different styles some more!
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