Ion Games Internship

During the summer of 2024 I had a internship at the board game studio ION Games for a few weeks. I worked with gameplay, balance and playtesting for a few different board games. It was a engaging and informative experience and I enjoyed my time there. After working on Mariestad Board Game for long it was interesting to see how an commercial board studio worked, and I learned quite a few things from working with professional board game designers. It show some of the challenges in commercial game development, but also many of the advantages a studio has when developing games.

Since that playtest I have worked with Robin Spathon Ek, the designer of games like Atlas - Explore the World, to do occasional playtests over tabletop simulator. 

Dino Dynasty

The first game I playtested was Dino Dynasty, a game about leading a species of dinosaurs and competing for points.

I playtested this game quite a few times and discussed game design and balance with its developer. One of the things we talked about the most was balance between different sized dinos. In the version I played we identified that large dinos were in general too powerful, and that the advantage of being small wasn't large enough. We playtested and discussed different ways to go about fixing this, while keeping the thematic connection and feel. A T-Rex should feel powerful and be strong in combat, but there also needs to be ways to defeat them. I also gave some feedback on the games rulebook and a list of minor things that could make it more enjoyable to play.

Atlas: Explore The World

The second game I worked on was Atlas, a game about traveling the world and collecting experiences. 

I played it multiple times, both with the game designer and with other interns at ION. I gave some feedback on how I would make the game more interactive between players and feel more tense. We tested different cards available for exploration, different public public goals to incentivize exploration and balance for player actions and bonus actions. I also tested and worked with the designer on how the "automata/bots" would work for solo and two player play.

I have since the internship tested new versions of the game and given feedback on its rulebook

Pax Viking

The third game I got to playtest was the solo mode of Pax Viking, before the printing of the games second edition. Here I worked on making the rules clearer to understand and the solo gameplay to feel more cohesive. I did this by making lists of what cards/tiles works for solo, and by suggesting alternative game board effects and player powers that fit better for solo play. It was a tricky challenge as solo game rules couldn't require any new components or drastic rule changes, but the base game has a lot player interaction that would normally be lost in Solo play

Kartini - From Darkness to Light

I also playtested Kartini - From Darkness To Light a few times. Its a game about Indonesia’s struggle for independence against the Dutch colonizers, where you build education for women and graduate fighters, politicians, patrons and teachers. I gave some feedback on balance and systems design and on the games rulebook. I also tested some coop milestones at different player counts to make sure they were fairly difficult, but doable even with bad luck.