Between our Tabletop Simulator mod and the world opening back up, we’re able to get more playtesting reps with Hair of the Dog. It’s great to see people loving the concept and trying to pet all the pups. We want to make this game real and get to Kickstarting it, but there are a couple of design issues to tackle first. Hair of the Dog needs to be both enjoyable at all player counts and have that undeniable Cherry Picked feeling.
Something we’re working on is the experience at the boundaries of the player count. More humans make a game less predictable. Hair of the Dog seems to scale up and accommodate that, but with two or three players, it feels too cutthroat and deterministic. So, we thought: what could be more randomizing than a child?
The new “Small Child Variant” adds a wandering kid to the game. The kid automatically pets the dogs, leaving you less time to suss out what each dog’s pet conditions are. This fills the void of several other humans, giving players another level of strategy to account for. We are currently recommending this mode for two or three player games, especially if you’re familiar with the core game. The PNP has all this in the rules, so if you tried Hair of the Dog with two or three players, give it a go with this variant and let us know if our theories are correct.
The other element we’re refining is player interaction. If you ask me what’s important in a tabletop game, I’ll say “player interaction”. I’ll also say something vaguely pretentious like “the player is the most important piece in a board game”. We want the pet conditions to transform Hair of the Dog from a pick-up-and-move style game into a game of hidden information and decrypting others’ behavior. Any game where people trade secrets is great.
So, to enhance the need to gossip about dogs, we’re testing out ways and incentives to make talking about conditions part of the strategy. One design involves a player taking a condition after successfully petting a dog. That condition still applies to the dog, but the only way to learn it is to talk to the player holding the condition. This could be an agreed upon knowledge swap, or a mandatory check while waiting in line at the bar. We’re still figuring out the fine points, but early tests show promise.
We’re close to having that breakthrough that pushes us over the edge. Once that clicks into place, we’ll crowdfund Hair of the Dog. As game stores and other venues continue to open up, we’ll be having more in-person playtesting events. We’ll also keep hosting Tabletop Simulator tests. And, as always, the PNP is available to anyone with a printer, some scissors, and a dream. Hopefully, however you want to play, we can make Hair of the Dog the best dog petting game out there.
--Alex