This was my first-ever round (though I watched the previous test round), so it's hard for me to compare, but I had an absolute blast and think this worked really well!

Things I liked:

• The puzzle of trying to figure out how to use the clues to determine where the squares were in the first minesweeper round and how squares without traps contributed to knocking down the boss (and contained fun treasure!) because it meant all squares were useful without needing to a full clear.


• Two tags per square for greater flexibility.


• The Tower Team spreadsheet was amazing and I'd love for both teams to have that next time.


• The friendly atmosphere both within and between teams.

Things that it might be nice to change for next time:

• Tower joining Dungeon at the end of the game sounded like a great idea, but in practice was kind of awkward - a lot of people in Tower had run out of steam and those that wanted to keep creating felt awkward about intruding. I wonder if it would help to just start the pre-anon editing period as soon as one team wins, giving both teams a bit of time to celebrate/process, and then let the winning team join the losing team during anon period if they still haven't finished their board so it can be more chill, like people seemed to want (and then start the bingo at the end of the anon period?). Or maybe during the anon period, combine the two boards (as in knock out all the squares either team got) to go for a full board clear for extra tags?


• I really liked the idea of being able to find/earn items to knock down more difficult squares from the test round, though hearing about past rounds, I realize that could create hoarding issues. Maybe some requirement for them to be used in a particular amount of time from when they're acquired would help? And maybe the same for calling squares? It was nice not worrying about whether to call or hold back.


• Things did go very quickly, especially toward the end for Tower Team. It'd probably be good to have higher tag totals (especially with items) and I'd love for the last board to have been a mystery too. It would also be nice to have some mechanism for rewarding slower creators, since they're investing more time for less reward. I remember in the test round, there was an item that let you see some squares on the next board, which might help, as might having items that make all squares on the board useful, even in the final round.


• I wasn't a treasure hunter and I get the impression there weren't many of them, but they seemed pretty detached from the rest of the game. Having not experienced last year, my feeling is that it would be fine for them to help with boards too without bribes, maybe even encourage teams to put tags they're having a lot of trouble with in the treasure hunter chat so they can help out, and maybe they earn tags if they do a certain number of works (or do works for both teams, to encourage even play?)