Communication Design

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Final Project ( I am The Bluff)

includes: - Game Box Packaging - Game Cards - Game Guide - 2 x Counter pouches - Game Development Progress Booklet (User testing, iterations, examples)

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Playtesting

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Final Card Design

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Packaging Design

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Game Card Design 

Colour experiment. I decided that a warm background colour conflicts with the character’s skin colour so I decided to try a cooler colour (light blue) but I feel it doesn't suit my theme. In frustration, I clicked 50 or every colour and found a nice grey purple colour with really makes the characters stand out, I’ve decided to work around this colour and slightly altering it. 

[annadangsan]

Game Card Design

I’ve taken the user’s comments into consideration and made some changes. I’ve made the colours light, but I feel it doesn’t fit in with the theme, so i changed some elements to black. Now it fits in more with the theme, but I’m not sure if there is too much contrast or not. 

User comments: - It looks good - The white background makes it look cheap maybe try orange? ( I’m thinking of using a warmer white, I think orange wouldn’t look good against their skin tones.) - Maybe try a redish black? 

[annadangsan]

Game Card Design

This is my first card design. 

User comments: - The colours doesn’t work well together, maybe change the background colour to white so the characters can stand out. - The font for the name is hard to read - The greys blues and yellow is hard to read.  - The border makes the speech bubbles look cramp, maybe get rid of it and extend the name box? - Find a lighter orange? 

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Character Design Concept

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Playtest 6

Tested with 2 players: played 5 times. Changes were made during each round.

We played with the same game guide as the last one, but with the tiny changes that needed to be made. The Game Guide above is the result we got after testing. I believe I am getting close to the final result, as it was fun to play. 

After 2 rounds:  What do you think needs changing in the game? Can’t think of anything at the moment, need to play more and get used to the skills.

Do you think the abilities is confusing? The abilities at the moment is abit confusing as I do not know when to use it. I think the abilities are fine, it just needs to be clearer and specified. Do you like saying character phrases instead of just a name? It’s kinda cheesy, but it would be fun in a big group. 

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Playtest 5

Tested with 2 players. Played 3 times. 

Changes to be made - You’re under arrest is useless at the moment, needs to be altered.  - Should skill deduction be a thing?  - Reword Goverment ability, hard to understand - The Worker appears useless against the government Playtester’s opinions:

The game feels as if it needs more players. 

[annadangsan]

Professional Engagement #NZGDC2016 (New Zealand Game Developers Conference)

I was lucky to be able to attend the NZGDC, I would like to thank Ben Kenobi, for recommending me to attend and giving me the opportunity to attend. It was a wonderful 2 day experience, 1 day to enjoy the conferences and 1 day volunteering. This was a paid event, but I got one day free for volunteering. I got too see a lot of wonderful presentations, and got to meet a lot of new people, and made new friends. One unfortunate thing was that my sickness got worse as I was volunteering, fever got to me, so I had to stay home for the next few days, putting me a bit more behind on my work schedule.  

There was some amazing speakers and talks that really helped and inspired me. There was one presenter who did a talk on “ UI/UX 101 for Indies: How to push your buttons ”, her talk had some useful tips as she speaks about some bad UI/UX design out there. One quote I really like from her is “Good design is actually a lot harder to notice than poor design, in part because good design fits our needs so well that the design becomes invisible.” because I find this to be very true. 

I also got to meet a game board developer from Cheeky Parrot (Lucy Morris). It was really interesting to hear what she had to say about game board packaging design. She mentions that games that are easier to pronounce, and packaging that shows what the game is about is more effective and get sold more. I asked her what advice she can give me on play testing and she suggested to go to some of these places where the community can help me play test, Board Game by the bay, Cakes and Ladders, King of cards. She also gave me the advice that adding design will often distract the players from the actual game play.

On Friday when I was volunteering, I was lucky enough to be assigned to level 9 where a Analog Game Design Workshop was happening. I got to see the process they did to come up with quick game designs and was able to join in on some of the play testing. For one of the game that I helped play test with, we had to hold our arms like T-Rexs, and had to keep them there as we collect our assigned coloured paper and put them in our box. We had to roar every time we got something in. Another game that I was involved in was a bluffing game, coincidence or what? The theme for their bluffing game was that we were space monkeys and we are trying to crack a code, each of the monkey has apart of the code, the catch is that there are sabotor monkeys who are trying to sabotage us to fail the code. 

The NZGDC has been a really fun learning experience, and I would recommend everyone who are interesting in game development to go check it out. 

[annadangsan]

I am The Bluff

As I was designing a new iteration of my game. I came up with a new play style and came up with a name for my game. Because my game requires the player to state what they are and what they are doing each turn saying things like “I am The Government, and I’m taxing you”, I think it would be cool to use this phrase in the name. To help me design the game and help me make it more immersive, I’ve decided to add a story and personality to the game. 

The world has lost all order and is out of control. Only the most intelligence, richest, and most SKILLFUL, will rule the world. Gain authority through lying, and take advantage of it. Get your acting skills up, but be careful not blow your cover. Be cautious of those around you, who are trying to take you down, trust no one. You are The Bluff.  

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Bluffing games are usually quite serious due to its mysterious nature. But what if I add humour? I’ve made a new iteration of my game, this time it has a more humorous nature and personality than the previous ones. I have yet to test this and see what players think. I want to create a exaggerated humorous character design and give each character it’s own personality. I believe that giving characters personality will make the game more immersive as players will enter the “magic circle” imagining themselves as these characters. 

[annadangsan]

To not waste too much time, I’ve decided to start designing the visuals, while finding play testers. It could also be nice to play test the game mechanics and game visuals at the same time, killing 2 birds with 1 stone. Hopefully they don’t interfere with each other too much. 

Looking at the existing designs for bluffing, you can see a similarity of dark colours being used, the characters also have a serious and mysterious expressions. For me looking at these characters really help me get into character, into the “magic circle” and the serious expressions creates suspense. I believe it is ideal to create characters like this for bluffing games, I want to create my own characters with a similar style merged with the playing cards style. I like how playing cards are usable in 2 different orientation.

If I have time, I would like to experience how imagery affect the game. I would like to try bright and happy characters, or maybe no characters at all. I am not good at illustration people, so this will be a challenge to me. 

One thing I need to think about when designing these cards is to whether or not, I should write the abilities of the character on the cards or not. One thing I’ve found from play testing is that when the abilities is on the cards, players will usually read there first, and it makes it a bit easier to read if a player is lying or not, because you can see them looking at their cards and then looking at the ability card, as if they are contemplating whether or not they want to use their own cards or not. If they just look at their own cards, then it is more likely that they are telling the truth, unless they have memorize everything. Although, it is not needed to have the abilities on the card itself, this can be a rather interesting feature. 

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Interview/Playtest 4

I had a interview with my tutor from Game and Play design, Ben Kenobi. We play tested the game, which was still at the same stage as the previous play test. I told him the game was unbalanced and he told me that we needed to continue playing and see if that would still be the case later in the game. He gave me advice to simplify it down, as there was too much stuff going on. The game require us to remember what the opponent was, figure out what their goal is, and remember what we said, and what goal we are going for. He suggest testing with only 3 roles and possibly try 3 different currency. 

He asked me what I wanted from this, and then he told me that it’ll be alot of work to design the game mechanic aswell as the visual aspect. He suggested that I should figure out what I really want to do, saying that I can focus on designing the visual aspect of the game to pass my major. I really want to create everything myself, so I am willing to work hard for this. 

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PLAY TEST 3

New iteration. Play test with 5 players. 

Discoveries

- Abilities that takes from the government, does it take from 1 or all governments?  - Is there a limit to abilities used per turn?  - The Homeless is too strong - The Government abilities is too costly - The Passive is too confusing, it’s more like an ability.  - The Bodyguard passive shouldn’t require a cost. 

[annadangsan]

PLAYTEST 2

With the information I’ve gathered from play test 1, i have made a new iteration. This time I’ve play tested this with 4 people. Here is the information I’ve gather from this test. 

- There is no way of taking status from another player, which means it’s impossible to stop someone from using their Status ability.  - A Player felt that there was no reason to lie, and it was hard to tell if anyone was lying. - A Player felt as though the game was rather repetitive. - A Player suggest “Revive” would be a cool ability to add. - A Player suggests the game needs a way to confuse players, like changing roles, or swapping roles.