Mini Normal 2170: Stuff I’m Listening To [Game Over]

[callforjudgement]

Hi I reviewed this game.

hello
was it picked up on that there was the potential to clear the traitor and that the checker was a really abstract way to balance around that?
was it noted that the checker & loyal jailkeeper should have confirmed each other as town via setup?

in general i just think i really strongly dislike the design concept, i'm curious to see what approach was taken to reviewing it

I was the backup reviewer, so can answer these questions:

- We missed that the Jailkeeper could soft-clear the Traitor. Umlaut was concerned that the setup was townsided, so it may have been allowed unmodified anyway. That interaction was hard to fix, I suspect; if you make the traitor non-Bulletproof, then we end up with scum being killed accidentally overnight even though they're massively winning, which is probably an even worse interaction.
- It was intended that town would confirm at least one player from setup clues. We weren't entirely sure which (it depends a lot on who dies first and who targets who), but it's the sort of interaction that typically exists in Normals and helps to balance them. (One of the things I look for when checking for setup balance is that there's neither too little, nor too much, of this sort of thing in the setup.)

I should note that I'm not confident in my ability to balance traitor setups, and pretty much said as much in the review. In retrospect, the setup might have been a little scumsided. The players seemed to think it was townsided during the game itself, although I'm not sure how much of that sentiment was genuine and how much was scum blowing smoke in order to cast doubt on the Jailkeeper's claim.