Game and Play Design Blog

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week 10+11: Board making

I created a net to lazer cut my board. I’ve decided to use a thin mdf board and create tokens for aesthetic purposes. The monsters are currently numbered squares but the scavenge pieces are “buttons” (with circles from 1-3 to show how many items you can take)

my main worry was that the board may be too thin so i had doubled up on tokens. however i wanted to make my entire board magnetic (by using magnetic tape therefore i cant make it too thick or else the magnets won’t work.

the last thing I need to work on is hinges on the board. i have taped it for now. however hingers are preferable.

my toolbox contains: 2 sets of magnetic tape, book tape, scissors, razer blade, tokens, cards, and extra card sleeves

WEEK 9 : Card making: board beginning

For the next two weeks I will be working on construction of physical pieces for my game. Since i’ve locked onto aesthetic (dollhouse creepy) I will have to add that into my cards.

These are the current card designs I have created. Although I know I could probably come up with more creative names for some cards i’ve decided to keep it simple so that its easy to recognize what the card does without reading their descriptions. I kept the main cards (the ones you start in your hand) simple and the scavenger cards more creative. And used different colours for each.

Although I have designed a card back I may be using card sleeves for this prototype so the card back might not be seen.

BOARD:

For now I need to focus on what type of material my board will be made of. Plastic/acrylic seemed like the way to go since it would be nice to have a surface where you can mark and erase when you defeat monsters. however aesthetically it may not be too pleasing. Wood /mdf is the second option.

I will lazer cut the board and create a net for my 3d printing.

OTHER: monster idea:

If i had more time i would have wanted to add monster figures. Since its a dollhouse, i felt it would be cool to have the furniture in the dollhouse as monsters. At first i looked into getting miniature furniture but it was too expensive for the volume of monsters the game had. Then I looked into paperdoll furniture since it was easily printable, had the vintage vibe, and less expensive. I don’t think i would be able to make them however since its quite tinkery and i would require a lot of time to make the amount of monsters i have.

AESTHETICS PLANNING

for this week i’ve been looking into construction and aesthetics of the game.

Alternative board ideas?? 1st one inspired by japaese teahouses? the 2nd one inspired by an old zelda dungeon map.

aesthetics idea: sticking bits of miniature furniture on the board, for a horror house/dollhouse vibe.

packaging idea: packaging it so it looks like a house, that can be folded down, little box for cards and tokens at the bottom and sleeve to hold it all together.

mildly getting inspired by dollhouses now, i looked into making some pallettes that can be creepy/cute

MID SEM BREAK UPDATES + PLAYTESTING RESULTS

EXTRA: Chromacon

I went to chromacon over the first weekend over the holidays. Although my main purpose was to check the illustrators I went to check out the Chromacade.

Grabity was one of the most refined games in the room, which was a super smash bros-like multiplayer game where players use the objects around the room to attack or defend themselves.

Dogos was the next game that caught my eye simply through its aesthetics, and then got even more exciting after i realized what it was about. DOGO puts the player in control of numerous platforming characters of the same colour. Your goal is to convert other players’ followers by jumping on their heads. The most people converted within the time limit wins, or if one player does a complete hostile takeover. I loved how they took such a heavy concept and tied it with such a simple, almost ridiculous mechanic, playing on the whole “stomping on your beliefs”

PLAYTEST results from playing in class:

-rules are getting a bit trickier. need to find out which elements are necessary, or if there is a simpler way to implement it. We’ve made a goal to try keep all our games pretty short.

- ^^ for example the the Equip cards: main reason they exist is to buff players attack to help them fight higher level monsters for a whole round. These are played seperately from the 5 cards you play per turn and cant be countered. Players were confused whether they were allowed to add one equip card per round. (stacking)

- a solution could be to create a couple of item cards that do single “turn” attacks (one time use) and a few equip cards (used for the whole round).

- SAVE POINTS: there were questions about save points, if there were misappropriate places they can be placed for unfair advantages.

- PLAYTIME: can go to an average of 15-30 minutes per game if you are familiar with the rules.

PLAYTESTS OUT OF CLASS

(this helped me get a better idea of how playable or “fun” the game was)

overview:

- the movement element gets a bit difficult for players to wrap their head around at first. “Why can’t we just use dice??” After playing through for a while, especially when they began to fight monsters, they realized how important it was to calculate your steps.

- the idea of the exit closing after a player goes through excited them, and was known to be a main drive for hte players .

CRITICAL REFLECTION + UPDATES

Although our team had a slow start, i think we’ve started to come together and have started really dig into our concept more. After some research on co-op and competitive games and board game mechanics I've been able to pick up the pace and construct my game thanks to the inspiration. Each playtest has been really helpful to identify anything that can be improved and to also understand the playability of the game. My goal over the holidays is to playtest with a wider audience (aka people outside the classroom) and I think i can still do some more research in regards to looking into aesthetics and the actual construction of the game.

During my free time i’ve also been keeping an eye out on indie blogs and sites such as itch.io ,freegameplanet and alpha-beta-gamer for inspiration through the digital front. I will also be attending chromacon this weekend to check out illustrations and their chromacade.

PROTOTYPE UPDATES

PICTURES OF PROTOTYPE:

PINK STRIPS : MONSTER ZONE

GREEN: SCAVENGE ZONE

for prototyping purposes there are 2 sets of 10 pink strips so that i can try out the game ona 10 x 2 board or a 10 x 4 board.

ALIEN INVASION GAME : CONCEPT

(since the idea for this game only game up a few days ago, it has not been developed as much as the other, but its a cool idea)

after a crushing alien invasion, a few humans are the only ones left with the physical and emotional strength left to save whats left of humanity. They plan to escape their almost destroyed Earth to find a new one, but their technology kinda sucks, so they need to steal nifty alien technology to craft a spaceship to get away.

Even though the story is essentially an escape plan, the game itself will probably revolve around scavenging, crafting, and a bit of espionage.

Players are split into an ALIEN team and a HUMAN team. the alien team knows that the humans are attempting to escape but the humans are hiding well, theyrefore they mainly focus on heightening SECURITY. while humans try to scavanage items to craft a spaceship.

ESCAPE GAME VERSION 1

THEME: HORROR HOUSE OR ANCIENT TOMB

ESCAPE GAME : (pictures of cards and the board to be added soon)

4 people are trapped in a house full of monsters and are trying to escape. They can either escape from the FRONT or the BACK entrance (VERTICAL LANE). The players can find any items they need to help them in the rooms around the house (HORIZONTAL LANE)

VERTICAL LANE :

all players start at the crossroads of all lanes (corridors??) and can choose to pick which way to exit. The tiles are marked as monster tiles (ranking from level 1-3) along with blank tiles. If a player reaches the end of of the board, the exit will CLOSE on them, so the other players will have to race to get to the other end (adds competetive nature).

HORIZONTAL LANE (SCAVENGE LANE) :

The horizontal lane is a safe area for the players and is used to scavenge items. It is a circuit (aka if you hit the end of one side you just turn back and go around, this can be done until youve scavenged what you need and head to the centre to start escaping)

STARTER CARDS: WALK x3 , ACTION CARDS x 2, RUN x 3

SCAVENGE CARDS: sabotaging cards, extra action card (temporary ones) , Equip cards (to make action cards stronger), defense cards, respawn cards(save point cards, can be placed on any tile so that players can respawn where they left it if they die)

WHAT ARE ACTION CARDS?

these are the SCAVENGE cards from our original. in the scavenge lane (HORIZONTAL) action cards are treated as scavenging cards and used to pick up items. if playing on a vertical lane it is used to fight MONSTERS. you can “equip” them with cards you scavenge to make them stronger temporarily.

Monsters, killing monsters and dying:

monsters get stronger the more you get closer to the exit, and you need action cards to kill them. all default action cards start at power 1, which means you can kill level 1 monsters. if you land on a tile with a monster with a higher level than you action card, you will DIE. when you die, you lose all your scavenged cards and head to the middle of the board ( unless you’ve placed a respawn point) .

Once a monster is killed by any player, it is completely gone for the duration of the game. this will make sure the game doesnt last too long. but because of this, the monsters will have to be balanced so that it isnt too easy to finish the game.

OPTIONAL: PLAYER PROFILES??

Special player profiles: players can choose a character to play with which have special perks. herers an example.

Alex: is athletic. start with one extra run card

Bonnie: is ???

Caleb : is Careful. start with a permanent respawn card, but loses 2 run cards

Debbie: is deadly and Reckless. action cards start with level 2 power, but you start with one less action card.

#text post #game

WEEK 4: SPLITTING UP

For this week we decided to split up and look into different types of context to create a prototype for. We were advised to look into contexts that are polarisingly different from one another, so we decided to split into the following ; competetive version, co-op version, and to explore an inbetween version.

I’m reasearch on co-op competetive games, and how their mechanics work and common themes that surround it.

- Alcatraz: the scapegoat: you cooperate to complete the escape plan before the guards catch you, but have to leave someone behind. It's still a coop game where the single team wins or loses, but each player must vie for a spot on the team.

- Archipelago: similar to Civilization. Explore territories, harvest resources, use those resources in markets both internal (for their use and that of the natives) and foreign (to sell it in Europe), build markets, harbors, cities and temples, and negotiate among themselves (and maybe betray each other) – all this to complete their secret objectives. They will also need to guess the secret objective of the other players to be able to benefit from them.

- Betrayal: where players are working together to explore the house even though one of them is (probably) going to betray the group.

- CO2: In the game CO₂, each player is the CEO of an energy company responding to government requests for new, green power plants. The goal is to stop the increase of pollution, while meeting the rising demand for sustainable energy — and of course profiting from doing so. The overall co-op goal is to make sure the world is safe, but each players individual goal is to have the best company.

- Cutthroat Caverns : played over 9 rounds, each with a random encounter. Essentially a game of 'kill stealing'. Each round, any monster encountered will have a prestige value of 1 through 6. The player that successfully jockeys for position and lands the killing blow gets the prestige value for the encounter. Some encounters will not have a specific monster, such as a trap room for the heroes to pass through (and in this case, earning no prestige). The surviving player with the most prestige after the 9 encounters is the winner. If the players do not survive all 9 encounters, no one wins the game.A unique combination of cooperative game play and opportunistic backstabbing.

- Dead of Winter : Survive the apocalypse, but also complete your own secret objective. The whole team must win for you to win individually with your secret objective, unless you're a betrayer. There are many different objectives, and lots of twists and turns.

- Marvel Legendary: A deck builder that has players working together to take down the villain, but competing to get the most points by fighting lesser villains and henchmen. Starts off competetive, ususllay ends with players banding together to try not to lose.

-PostHuman: Players must cooperate to trade and boost each other's morale points and have enough food to make sure they can make it there without dying, yet people are generally trading in their own self-interest and hoping they don't give someone too much of a leg up in the race. But also not letting someone lose so bad that they decide to become a mutant and start attacking all the human players.

- Train Heist : cooperative game with a versus mode option that still requires players work together somewhat, though the winning player might try to sabotage that to end the game early.

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In most of these cases , it seems that there is a main overall goal for all players to meet (which requires them to co operate with each other) while having individual goals for the player to win. This is probably something I should keep in mind when creating the game and rules.

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ESCAPE GAME VERSION 1: RULES!! CLICK HERE!!!

ALIEN GAME CONCEPT!! CLICK HERE!!!

WEEK 3 : CONTEXT

Our game is currently quite simple. while we were brainstorming intensly trying to figure out how to make our game more complex, thinking of different contexts, we thought it would be interesting to explore how many different ways we could change our game by changing its context.

We thought about different settings and audiences we could target. We know that with each context , we wanted to change the game mechanics a little. Our current game is a solid base for us to work on .

Some context ideas we’ve thought of :

- Social Media (Popularity)

- Explorers

- Drinking games

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Mark Major’s Theme vs. Mechanics gives us an insight to how adding context could change our gameplay.

Flavour: thematic segments of the game that don’t necessarily change the mechanics

Rules: parameter of the game

Components: cards, dice, boards, etc. physical pieces in the game

“The more complex or seemingly contrary a game’s mechanics are, the more important theme is as an ingredient because of how it modifies and builds the context.”

“Where flavor has no impact on the game, theme does. Themes set up parameters for how you expect the game to take place, what behaviors you expect to take, and how you’ll be interacting with others. For example, a zombie theme would probably include the expectation of suspense and perhaps cooperative play, but not include the expectation of political intrigue or medieval warfare.”

WEEK 2: RACE BOARD GAME

We have started to take elements we liked from our previous game and have begun to make a new one, focusing mainly on the mechanics for now.

Currently the board is a simple set of linear tiles, where the players have to go through from one end to the other like a race.

START > [][][][][][][][][][][][][][] < FINISH

To move through the tiles, players must use cards that are placed every turn like commands ( currently we are playing with 3). The players reveal their cards simultaneously , this way we have simultaneous play along with reveal mechanics.

MOVEMENT CARDS :

[ WALK ] - move 1 tile

[ RUN ] - move 2 tiles

[ STOP ] - doesnt move player but moves any running player back 2 steps

We’ve started to bring item cards as well, but to draw these a [ SCAVENGE ] command must be placed. This stops players from moving but lets them draw.

Right now we need to focus on solidifying the mechanics of the game and to fix any issues.

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There are many types of board games (Parlett,1999)that may be categorized by their ratio of luck to skill.

Simple: Simple race games involve pure luck. Each player has only one piece to move, and the outcome of the game is thus totally dependent on chance. The Game of the Goose is the progenitor of most simple Western race games, although Snakes and Ladders is descended from games of India, Nepal, and Tibet. The ancient Egyptian game Mehen was likely a simple race game.

Complex: Complex race games combine luck and skill. Players have more than one piece to move (typically four), and so choices of move can be made that will put a player in advantageous positions. Many modern complex race games including Ludo, Parcheesi, Trouble, and Sorry! ultimately derive from India's Pachisi and Chaupar.

Multiplex: Multiplex race games greatly increase the role of strategy, while retaining the element of chance. Backgammon, the most well-known representative of this category, is a member of the Tables family of games, which also includes Trictrac, Nard, and Acey-deucey. The ancient Egyptian game Senet and the ancient Mesopotamian Royal Game of Ur were almost certainly race games, and may belong to this category.

Strategic : Strategic race games eliminate (or render trivial) the element of chance. Examples are Bantu and Hare and Tortoise.

ref: Parlett, David (1999), The Oxford History of Board Games, Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-212998-8

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For our game, we want it be close to a multiplex game, where there is a large role of strategy but also a slight chance. The reveal mechanic makes the game focus on Perception.

WEEK 1: GAME PROJECT PLANNING [phase 1?]

Our current methadology is to work from MECHANICS > CONTEXT > ART .

At the moment we know that we want to intergrate PVP and simultaneous play elements into our game. These are mechanics we were working on with our previous project from last semester.

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PREVIOUSLY ON: THE LAST SEMESTER

our project was to create a 3d tower board game that used pvp and simultaneous play mechanics. We were struggling a little to figure out some stuff (like how to set up a 3d tower, how to actually execute simultaneous play without it being stressful, creating appropriate game tiles for each board).

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We still want to intergrate parts of our old game into our new project, but we’ve realized what works and doesnt so for the first 2 weeks we’ll mainly be working on that.

I also want to focus a lot this year on trying to find a good story/context that we could equip our mechanics into, as i felt our story for the game last year was slightly weak. It would feel pretty bad if we worked so much on perfecting the mechanics for a game if no one was interested in playing it, and i believe its context plays a big part.

2017

WEEK 9+10: SCOPE

Today we were given a completely new brief!! Ultimately resulting in the end of our bee game. We will be creating a new game for this brief, which we will then pitch in a video format.

There are 3 criteria we have to address in our pitch (which we have divided to our three members) :

WHY?

What is the phenomena you are responding to or what is your line of enquiry, questioning?

WHAT?

What is your developed concept that you propose addressed this phenomena or question?

HOW?

What is your methodology? How will you know you are making the right design decisions?

We came with a multi-story board game, where players (2-4) attempt to escape a collapsing building.

There is one parachute located in-game, which a player has to reach to get off and successfully jump off the building. We wanted to stray away from turns in our mechanics, and want to integrate simultaneous play on a 3d/multilayered tabletop. (”no dice!! no dice!!”)

The game will feature a physical 3d building, with each floor pulled out so that the pieces can be moved throughout the game , while giving the building a “collapsed look” (see middle right diagram above??)

We then thought about what the game would be like if there was more than one parachute/more than one winner, or if there were other forms of escape. This is when we thought about bringing minor foraging/crafting elements into the game to create new escape paths. We know that we cannot bring too much as since this is a simultaneous game, it is very face paced.

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I will be focusing on the What aspect of this brief and will be providing my voice as a voiceover for our video!!!

WEEK 8

This is a very highly active game that will be played over concrete, so it is important to make sure the game is safe to play. Slippery mats are a no-go.

This week we were trying to figure out the best, safest designs for our flowers. We came with the idea of poles to hold instead of mats to step on, however they may be easy to topple over. they cannot be weighed down too heavily since they need to be able to be moved around easily.

In the end we thought the best approach would be best to have an large mat set out as a base for the game, along with stepping mats, as thatway there will be enough grip to keep it from slipping.

WEEK 7 (+ HOLIDAYS) : NEW PROTOTYPE

During the holidays, we met up again since we were a tad behind and decided to create a completely new prototype based on feedback received last class. Our goal was to properly set down the basics of the game (who will play it?? where will it be played?? ???? What exact message will the game have for the players??? What kind of action do we want them to take?? etc,)

We created a pretty physical, relay type game, where the player(bee) collects points (pollen) from one end and return home(beehive). They are only allowed to step on the mats(flowers) provided, while a game moderator takes a mat off the game every few seconds , along with an ally bee character that is allowed to move mats for you and help you make your path.

We did a playtest with the 3 of us, a couple of books and a classroom. I played the role of the bee moving from base to base and i personally say theres A LOT of energy involved. Being a high energy game though it brings a nice level of hype around when playing it, which ultimately is what makes the game quite fun. One thing that was an issue was how slippery the mats were (although this was a prototype) , so we’re going to look into that more to find the safest way to make paths for this game.

WEEK 6 : 1st Prototype

WEEK 5: MORE BEES

TEAM MEMBERS: LAURA, JERRY , SAMAI (ME)

SKILL SETS (taken from slack):

JERRY: Skill set:[7:50] Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, AfterEffects, PremierePro, Audition (Audio), Flash Animation Knowledge of Board/Video Game Mechanics Some drawing skills

LAURA: concept art (characters/environments), Photoshop, Ppro & After Effects, traditional art. Unity and Maya (animation not modelling lol). Scripting for games, access to Digital Design spaces, good communication and negotiation skills with lots of friends in interesting places (eg. sound engineers & musicians) :D

SAMAI (ME): Skill set : Photoshop, Illustrator ( Character Design, Backgrounds ) After Affects , Premiere Pro, InDesign Pixel art and animation Mild exp in html Pretty crafty in general??? World building/ storytelling

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Meeting up with Ben to see the current progress of Pollinating Pathways helped us understand how a team operates and to see the amount of iterations the game has gone through so far compared to the last time we saw it in week 1.

By week 6 we’re hoping to have a prototype set up. We are plannign to make our game large in scale however for the current prototype it will probably be small. Currently we have a narrative based game for our bee game (set out on twine) . It follows a character trying to help out a lost bee.

we will need to still sort out our mechanics soon.

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LINK TO TRELLO BOARD

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