Agents of Avarice

Created by Hunter Adamczyk, Nygel Clay, and Mikael Klefstad

In Agents of Avarice, you are a warring faction vying for control of land and resources.  Players expand their territories through movement and combat. As they do, their Progress Points add up. As they expand their territories, their faction stretches across the board, making their meeples more prominent and consequently, more open to attacks. Players can also build defenses by laying Wall cards in front of them. By choosing to build instead of expand, they can create a large defense system. These choices are the core loop. There is a reward for compiling each resource, which adds focus to player choices. This could be described as a medium loop as it rewards repetition in the core loop. The largest loop is the Progress Point system, which closes when the game ends, it is comprised of both core loop rewards and medium loop rewards.

War itself is the metaphor the game embraces most. There is an illusion of scarcity, that is, there are limited spaces from which to gain resources. However, the game could actually be played in a way that each player gains nine or ten progress points before the end, and each player finds no reason to battle. Perhaps “the illusion of scarcity” is its great secret. The game can cause a fair amount of frustration when things don’t go a player’s way. When a player keeps taking territory and resting on large resources, it can perhaps illustrate the world at large and the imbalance of capitalism. But then, perhaps that’s a bit lofty.

Process:
To create the initial prototype, we got out the markers and paper and crafted cards and tiles at Cline. We were able to begin playtesting in less than an hour. Keeping the rules streamlined helped both the gameplay length and the ability to hit the ground running. Thankfully, our group was able to meet a number of times to playtest and make sure the game was functioning well. In classroom playtests, we found that the basic gameplay was understood for the most part. The first major hurdle we had was the weakness of the Yellow Faction. This was remedied by allowing players to trade 3 for 1 resources. In the next playtest, we found that Yellow was almost the strongest faction, but this might’ve been due to other players playing less aggressively. However, it was evident the Yellow Faction finally had a fighting chance. We also ran into issues with where walls are placed in the game. It’s tricky to find concise wording that is also clear in meaning. (Our final rulebook has an added visual for this reason.) Another interesting aspect that came out in playtesting was how the game is packaged. Making sure the components can be found easily makes for a quicker, less confusing setup time. Other issues we ran into consistently revolved around rules details that were misunderstood or poorly written in the rulebook. Sometimes, it was even an issue of where in the rulebook a rule was written.