The Pocket-Bocce playtest showed me a lot about the machine. I tested in class with everyone and I got a chance to show it at a party of non-game majors at a bar. As a bar-side game Pocket Bocce is absolutely fantastic. It holds up to four players and makes a great conversation piece. The greatest criticism I got of Pocket Bocce was the lack of theming. This became irrelevant at the bar because the black-lights made the book covers glow in the dark and super cool.
Some people even played the machine from behind – feat. Blake
The Overall feedback on the machine was that it needed to be prettier. A few other noteworthy complaints were that the rules weren’t written on the machine. The sand trap wasn’t really super fun. It was a welcome necessary evil at best. We eventually decided on a rule that if no one liked the position of the white ball the shooter may shoot again. we eventually did implement a plum-bob on the left side of the table using the extra golf tee. when you knocked it off you lost that ball. If you knocked it off while shooting the white ball you could no longer shoot it for the rest of the round.
The last and trickiest bit of feedback was that 5 points was too many. In the play-test in class a few people told me that they felt that way. When trying 4 or 3 at the party everyone complained of games going too short. I then decided to leave the score to win at 5 because that got the least complaints.