#pontowk7

[melonmaru]

Studio 6 - Mechanics of the compnents

Another mistake that I had during the design process was that I was focusing on the components’ function. It is reflected in the design and it made the combination complicate. Also, the game only focused on mechanics because I was trying to highlight them as much possible. Mechanics are important, but it should be melted well into the game. So, I reviewed the mechanics of the components and I tried to develop them.

Dice

Dice is mainly working as a random generator. It works purely on luck and players cannot manage or predict them. It may have less tactic, but it may give less stress to think. Ages, thinking skills, and knowledge levels do not affect on gameplay and that makes all players feel equal.

Card

The card can be used in many different ways. It also can generate random by drawing a card from a randomly stacked deck. The difference between the dice is they can manage the situation. Players can use tactics to make the game advantage to themselves.

Token

Tokens do not have any fixed form. It means they can be anything. It can transform to any shape and it gives a wider option. However, in this project, I need to think about carefully. The game will be played on a train; no tables and no fixed board to place the tokens. The number of tokens in a game is also important. If there are too many tokens, players will feel hard to manage them in a moving transportation.

Another point that I need to consider is the components can be crossed over to other components’ functions depending on the board game rules and components designs. I was thinking about using a dice only as a dice and same to other components. So, the flexibility of the usage will change the rules a lot.

Now, the highest priority in my project is the social part. These board games would help players building a physical communication in the real world. So, the languages and emotion of players will be delivered to the opponent players directly. These components of the board games would support the players to build the social skills and the games would become a trigger to reflect their sense of communication.

[melonmaru]

Studio 6 - Development :back to the priority

I am unhappy with the first designs of the games using dices and tokens. I tried to develop the games from existing games and I thought that is a good approach. However, they seem very tight fit to the existing rules with little changes. So, I tried to step back to the priority that I set to design the game to review the process.

I was focusing on 5 points;

Easy to learn

Solo player game

2+ players game

Place

cost

And I realised that I was focusing on the ‘solo play’ game during the designing process. Actually, the most important point that I need to concern is the ‘2 and more players’ game. It takes the social building part and it is the core of this project. If the game can be played alone, there is not a difference between playing a smartphone game.

I reset the priority as;

2+ player game - social

Easy to learn

Place

Cost

And I removed the solo player game from the list. However, I would make the game useful even the player could not find the other player to play.

[melonmaru]

Studio 6 - Prototype design

Dice: The theme of the dice game is Lemon and Paeroa drink. There are 2 dices and they have 2 different patterns on each dice, which are lemons and cups of spring water. The number of drink can be removed from the list when one dice is the lemon pattern and the other dice is spring water pattern. It is inspired from shut the box game.

Tokens: The theme of the token game is Bluebird chips. The game is inspired by the peg solitaire game and it has extra rules with different types of the pegs. One is a peg of penguins and the other is a peg of a potato chip. The penguins can jump over the chips and the other penguin, but chips cannot jump over the penguins. Playtests are required to adjust the number of pegs. 

Problems: The problem came from the board part. I predicted that will be the hardest part, and I could not find many solutions until now. I was trying to make a puzzle game, but there was a problem on the questions. Most puzzle games on the market have cards, book or some other ‘extra’ thing to provide a random problem to solve. If I make any extra cards on the board, it does not mean wrong but it can make other games complicate. So, I decided to combine the board and card to make the game simpler. Also, it will reduce the complexity when it is combined with other games. 

[melonmaru]

Studio 6 - Vending machine, board game and community

The vending machine in this project links the players to the board games. The vending machine reflects a busy life of modern people in these days and it symbolises the ‘simple’, ‘convenience’ and ‘fast’. However, the board games are very opposed to the conveniences and they are very physical. Another student from my crit session asked about the reason I choose the board game. There are so many smartphone games for killing time, and it does not need to be a physical model. Yes, I agree with that. And I could not answer the question at that time.  

Now, I think the format of a community follows the format of tools used to build the community. Since the social network services became popular, the proportion of time spending on online community increased because the tool that built the online community was the social network services. So, if the tool of communication is a board game in a physical model, it can build a ‘physical’ offline community which needs to face a real person, not a screen. And it is a good and important reason that board games in digital format cannot replace the real board game.

So, I believe that the vending machine can deliver the board game to modern people who are habituated to the convenience and the fast.

In the exhibition, I would set up a small and simple vending machine which dispense the board games. I was thinking about two different types, a candy dispenser type and a general vending machine type. However, the candy dispenser type is too complicated and I need to concern about the size of the board games too. So, I decided to make a general vending machine.

There are two different ways to build;

-Manual

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPJ1e1Hc1hw)

It does not need to connect to a power. Simple mechanism but it will take time to design my own to fit the board games in it.

-Arduino

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qPCrWp8L4s)

It uses sensors, motors and Arduino to control the dispensing mechanism. It requires power to maintain the system.

Important: The vending machine is very iconic in this project, but it is not the major content; the major contents are the board game and the community aspect of it. If the time is not enough to build a vending machine, I will skip making the vending machine and the vending machine will stay as a concept.