Beartrayal
A game where you don't have to outrun the bear... As long as you outrun the people next to you.
Project Overview:
BearTrayal is a tabletop board game centered around strategic decision making and the lengths you’ll go to survive.
Can be played cooperatively or competitively, and can change modes during play.
Platform: Tabletop
Date: 2021
Designer: Zach Ritter
Role: Game Designer, Art
Intent:
BearTrayal is a game where players choose how they play in order to escape from a ferocious bear. Work together cooperatively or compete to survive, your actions determine the course of the game.
Will you choose to assist your fellow hikers and form potentially unstable alliances, or throw your fellow players to the bear to make a daring escape? BearTrayal is essentially a race against an unstoppable accelerating enemy. One of the most interesting dynamics of the gameplay is that most cards offer a choice between two actions. Players must make potentially difficult choices about personal and group advantage, and will see the consequences of their actions later in gameplay as other players respond to said decisions.
I wanted to engage both experienced board game players and people who don't have a lot of experience in gaming. The goal was for people to be intrigued by the basic idea of playing through a hiking adventure and balancing ease of play with enough complexity to make people think about their choices.
Gameplay:
After initial setup, each player's turn consists of rolling a die for movement, potentially drawing a card, and choosing which cards in hand you want to play to get ahead or set others behind. The rules (included in the downloadable PDF linked above) are simple but compelling, focusing on player interaction, agency, and social dynamics rather than complex objectives.
Testing & Feedback:
After creating the concept and first iteration of the cards and game board, I work-shopped the game with my family and friends and incorporated suggestions. This strengthened the game and helped me clarify and simplify the rules.
I sent it out for playtesting with groups of experienced tabletop gamers and had them fill out feedback surveys to measure number of players, age of players, how many times through they played, whether or not they were able to win and if so how many survived, were the instructions and cards easy to understand / suggestions for improvement, any issues with board setup, and whether the game was fun to play. I also asked about the average playtime length, measured the social interaction and play tension, asked about the best and worst parts of the game, and solicited suggestions for improvement.
On average, the game took 15-20 minutes to play, and most of the playtesters played multiple times.
Responses said the rules were clear, the setup was easy, and the average measure of fun was a 9 on a scale of 1-10.
The game was rated a 9.5 for being able to keep the players’ attention, and a 9 for social interaction.
One player said "Playing cooperatively made the objective pretty clear" but another player countered that "playing so everyone's out for themselves was even more clear".
Playtest Comments:
“We tend to play a lot of cooperative games, so in this game, it gave us a lot to think about that we felt some relief when the bear caught up with one party member, giving us a little reprieve.”
“It gets exciting near the end. You think you are about to beat the bear and then it crosses that last yellow line and suddenly he's breathing down your neck!”
“The best part of the game is you get to choose how to play.”