From little stones grow mighty mangoes

As Gentle Readers may remember, one of your number (specifically Dan, over at Position of Ignorance was looking for assistance with some game-playing ideas. With such assistance, he has come up with an alpha version of Valley of the Drupes, which of course involves Hans Cherryseed, Patricia Peachtree, Ebenezer Elderberry and Olive, um, Pitt cultivating orchards and stoning crows. You can help playtest; all you need is a few hundred acres of arable land, friends with odd names, a few starter seeds, and generations of patience. Alternately, you could play a model version with a deck of cards, some colored tokens, and two six sided dice. If you’re in a hurry.

Anyway, go and check it out. From an initial playtest, it’s got some interesting strategy balances between expensive risky ploys and methodical safe play. It wasn’t terribly long (although I tend to play quickly and incorrectly, so your mileage may differ); I didn’t clock it, but it was certainly less than an hour, including gathering the stuff, and musing over the rules. As I’ve only played right hand against left, I have no way of knowing if there’s a way to mask those strategies and surprise your opponent with tasty fruit just as the crop is ripening. I’m curious to see. And, in the opposite of the strategy in the game itself, playtesting is all the easier if other people do it first, so any of y’all who give it a whirl will be helping me out.

Thank you,
-Vardibidian.