I don’t think I’ve ever been very good at accepting feedback. Part of that is because, in my experience, when I’ve been given feedback it is for something I had already considered and I therefore had a reason for making the decisions that got me where I was. The other part is that it can feel like I’m being attacked when someone gives me negative feedback. It’s not a great feeling. However, feedback, regardless of good or bad, is very important.

I have received quite a bit of feedback at this point for Cutthroat Fruit Merchant. I’ve been playing games through Tabletop Simulator with friends and some online acquaintances for the past few months, trying for weekly games, but more frequently biweekly due to availability. It sounds like most people have enjoyed it so far and I’ve received some minor feedback for adjustments to rules. But I’ve had two major feedback experiences that I wanted to share.

The first came from a person I did not know at all, who was brought in to play by someone I did, and still do, know. From the beginning of the game, I had waffled about whether or not a port could have a demand for the same type of fruit that it supplied. I figured it could be an easy way to work through a supply and create more scarcity, but would that be handled automatically within the game or would a player benefit from it? I decided to leave it open ended, though the only way it could occur would be if a player used one of two specific cards and chose to have the demand be the same fruit as the supply. The first time this occurred in game play I thought about shutting it down as it wasn’t really something I intended to happen, but instead I let it go to see what would happen. This resulted in one player sitting at a single port for a turn or two buying and selling fruit back to the same port. We all had a good laugh and the playstyle stuck. No one else mentioned it. Not even players who were new to the game. They just rolled with it. But then this one player came in, played a game, saw this occur, and stated flatly (after the game ended, he was very polite) that he did not like it and that it was the only thing he didn’t like about the game. Frankly, if it weren’t for this feedback, I might never have changed that rule, which resulted in adjusting one of the card types, making a whole new card that allowed players to sell the same fruit back just once, and removing another card from the game entirely.

The other major piece of feedback I want to relate to you came from a person who is actually a pretty good friend. It was his second time playing the game and he stumbled upon a major hole in the rules. In CFM all the players have a hand of cards that can be played instantly at any time (some do have limitations, but they are instant use when the opportunity arises). The only way to replenish these cards is to spend your action points, of which you normally only have three, at a port drawing one card per action. Since you have to give up taking other actions to draw new cards I left the game with no hand limit. So my dear, sweet friend spent the entire game camped at a single port drawing cards until he had enough power in his hand to end the game within two turns. It should be noted that some of these cards are quite powerful, but, ideally, don’t all end up with one player. His immediate feedback after we finished playing was, as you can probably guess, and maybe you even thought of this yourself as you were reading, “you need to limit the hand size.” So I did. What’s funny about all of this is that in something like thirty games this was the first time anyone thought of this. And what’s more interesting is that after I limited the hand size I found more people spending time collecting cards up to their hand size; almost like a prompt that since there is a limit, you should always try to have that many cards. Prior to that, most players would play out their hand and maybe draw a card here and there, but spend most of their actions sailing, fighting, and trading.

So my takeaway is this. It can be difficult to receive feedback, particularly if it is negative, but it is important to listen. Try to not even respond in the moment (that’s something I have to work on, actually). If it weren’t for all the feedback I have received this game would not be what it is. And, frankly, it’s only gotten better.