Broke out my copy of Puzzle Strike 3rd edition inspired by the new one coming out. Fortunately had someone bow out so we only had 4 players.
I remembered how much I really enjoyed it and picked up a copy of Shadows. Getting more interest for the next night and may have 6-8 people over.
I figure, I’ll have a possible 8 players, but will the game become unwieldy? We played 4 player Free For All. Would it be better to play 3v3 or 4v4? Maybe do a mini tournament of sorts?
We are all experienced with more complex games, but are not hardcore or super competitive. Fun is a much bigger concern than balance issues.
In theory the rules could support any number of players, however one important point to consider is that each additional player above four will most likely slow the game down because of how many additional turns there will be per round, and how many opportunities there are in Puzzle Strike for players to take actions during each other’s turns (counter-ing, in reaction to their , etc).
There’s also of course going to be more gems anted each turn, but at the same time there’s more players who could counter- for each other so maybe that balances out? Hard to say.
The last thing relevant thing I can think of is that there’s only five copies of each bank chip other than the ones that are always used, and even with both 3rd Edition and Shadows you still wouldn’t be able to go past that limit, so you’d need to have more chips in the bank than normal to compensate or something. Having enough copies that at least one player can always get two copies of the same chip is an important part of the game’s design, and short of buying a second copy of either or both of the sets (or using the print-and-play version instead) that’s not one you can really fix, only improvise something to make up for it.
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