Be the first to finish your stack of ice cream dishes.
Materials:
1 deck of 60 cards
Setup:
Shuffle the Deck and deal each player 30 cards randomly
Gameplay:
Flip over two and place in between your deck of cards.
There are no “turns”. The players race to be the first to finish their deck by rapidly matching either the flavor, type of dish or number of dishes on their card to the respective ones on EITHER of the cards that are flipped up in the middle.
As the game progresses, obviously the cards will change based on what cards the players place on top. Keep placing matching cards as fast as you can, whenever you can.
Winning:
The game ends when one player finishes their stack. That player is the winner. Hooray!
Changes made:
There were edits made to the rules during prototyping to specify the simple mechanics – we had a moment that somehow the game was played but completely wrong so we tightened the wording
Changes TO make:
We’re going to tweak some of the coloring on the card to be more consistent – the blue ice cream cups threw a few people off on what type
Thoughts about Playtesting:
Most people understood the concept while one group totally didn’t so that was interesting – we clarified the rules so all people would understand. It’s interesting to see how people interpret rules or completely don’t read them when they think they know how it works.
Was it fun? Yes it was, a bit chaotic which made it enjoyable
What were the player interactions? The whole game was based off of player interactions – each player creates the personality of the game basically by how they decide to react to the storyline the “dungeon master” creates
How long did it take to learn? Not too long, as you sort of make it up as you go
What was the most frustrating moment or aspect of what you just played? We didn’t thoroughly establish each players roles so it was a little it clunky in the first half.
What was your favorite moment or aspect of what you just played? Being able to make up a story and do whatever you want under a loose structure was enjoyable – we also had good luck with the dice roll so it made it pace well
Was there anything you wanted to do that you couldn’t? Be able to tell the dungeon master not to do dumb things at times that didn’t really make sense
If you had a magic wand to wave, and you could change, add, or remove anything from the experience, what would it be? A little bit more direction for the story master to help them with the story theme
Is this a game you would play again? Maybe, it’s a bit chaotic so with the right crowd it could be more fun but it’s also a little mentally taxing and i prefer a little more mechanics and “gameplay” per say in my games
Analyze the game using the 3 act structure: Act 1 was determining each bears’ role in the game and making it out of “the forest”. Act 2 was healing some people from injuries and infiltrating Comic-Con and the guarded room (with lots of dice-rolling). Act 3 was then getting home where it all went downhill and our dungeon master called the whole military on us.
What are the collaborative and or competitive aspects of the game? Very collaborative, everyone is working together to complete the story, almost no competitiveness
What is the game’s metaphor and which of the game’s mechanics standout? Metaphor was a family of bears and you come up with the context, ours became a mafia gang – having very little mechanics was the most unique mechanic because the players determined what you actually had to do in the game
Describe the game in 3 sentences or in the form of a haiku:
Bear gangs fighting crime Infiltrating Comic-Con Betrayal and chaos
What is the difference between a “working” and a “display” prototype?
“Working” prototypes are intended for evaluation by playtesters and potential publishers and “display” prototypes, with finished art and components, are intended for the eyes of distributors or chain buyers.
What is required of a working prototype, and what might cause one to fail?
The ability for it to be played by testers, all the pieces, and pre-tested rules. It could fail if the creator focuses too much of the final look instead of rules and playability.
What makes for a good prototype according to Dale Yu?
The first impression, rules and manifest, the components, the hardware, the last impression
What advice from Richard Levy will help you pitch your game?
I think being very well prepared beforehand is a really important point that he makes. Also definitely keeping your ego in check – if you get told no, be persistent and don’t give up
Where might you pitch your game?
Someplace that has credibility and knows what they’re doing and is also honest and up-front about the whole process.
What do publishers look for in a game?
Professionalism – Prove that you’re a designer who can follow instructions, meet deadlines, and produce easily published work – the game likewise should have good player interaction, fun, good timing, strategy and and interesting theme to name just a few. Each publisher is uniquely different
What makes a good set of Rules?
Includes an overview, gameplay explanation, components, setup, card types, endgame/winning, examples and accreditations
Question Set 2
Describe the best game you’ve made this semester in 200 words? Follow Michelle Nephew’s advice.
Honestly, I liked the 2 player team project the best. I like really simple games that you can play multiple times and I think Madison and I did a good job of it. We had a pretty clear rule set (which needed a little bit of tweaking to make it completely understandable) and a good number of different cards that made the game the perfect length and very playable. If we kept editing it, the quality of the appearance would be better and I think it could be a fun little game to finish out. Fleshing out the different looks for each ice cream flavor would be the biggest thing to edit so that matching the different cards to each other wouldn’t take any extra thought and would be intuitive.
Most frustrating moment: For some reason it just didn’t flow very well when i played it the first time with 2 people – a few things were just not completed in the cards that are part of the gameplay so it was a little confusing
Favorite moment: I really liked the theme – when we played with 3 people it went really well and flowed very nicely
Was there anything I wanted to do but couldn’t: The ability to fill your hand to a certain limit if you get to like 1 card or something (we tweaked it in the rules later so we could do that and it worked much better)
Changing anything: I would make the cards a little smaller for ease of holding
Improvements for next version: Emphasizing what discarding a sabotage card means, is that saying you are playing the sabotage card or can you discard it without using it if you want to – there are no (!) on the sabotage cards like the rules said there would be – does the “Kitchen Fire” sabotage card effect you or others? Can you decide who it effects? – specify in the rules that a round ends when players run out of their hand (and maybe explain some strategy so players catch on quicker) – the mandatory discard rule is a little annoying when you get to the end of a round, maybe try to rethink that mechanic
Describe the game in 3 words: Hangry, point-system, fun-but-needs-improvement
Concept: Compete to fulfill “repair orders” with limited dice rolls
Gameplay:
Each player runs a workshop.
Orders (cards) show what dice combos you need (roll a 3 = fix engine).
You roll up to 3 times per turn (Yahtzee-style) to complete jobs.
Use “Tool” cards to modify rolls (“Reroll one die,” “Swap with another player,” “Delay order for bonus”).
Earn money for jobs, lose it for broken tools or failed orders.
Each turn players all choose a new Repair Card each round rolls the device. Collect the money if you ruled the specified number on the card. Choose a Tool card and roll again. Follow instructions on Tool Card if applicable. If there is opportunity, role one last time. Collect all money for complete Repairs.
what is the difference between a game designer and a game developer? A designer generally creates and actually designs the original game concept and prototypes. Developers take those designs and make them better. They test them and improve them over many iterations and ultimately finish the game.
what commonly occurs during the game development process? Tweaking rules and concepts within games to make them better and more cohesive.
what are the challenges of balancing a game? Primarily, “Numbers” and the cost of making decisions. The detailed challenges stem from these things but these are the overarching categories. Basically, controlling and balancing “imbalance” without completely eliminating it.
what should every player of your game believe? why? (I couldn’t directly find it in the readings) but they should believe that your mechanics of the game will work and it is possible to win – i think having a believable metaphor is also very important so the players are immersed in the environment
how can you avoid stealing players fun? Well there are quite a few ways, but it basically comes down to not making it complex and eliminating extra confusing stuff.
what 10 maxims should you follow when writing rules? No intermediary words, use real words, make no more words than necessary, add flavor (but not too much), make your text no smarter than the reader, discard rules that can’t be written, take a breath, go easy on the eyes, get your final version, fix it in the FAQs
Question Set 2
how has play testing changed your game? it exposes flaws and fine tunes rules
who from class would you like to play test your next game or version 2 of your first game? Well if it is version two, I would like at least two people who played it first (like Harmony or Zach or Maria) and at least two other new ones. I think same for my new game honestly – I think Brice also gives honest and constructive advice
who is the audience for your game? well the game i have for this week is probably for older kids who understand card games to adults of any age
who should play test your game outside of class? mmmm, I guess I might give it to some of my friends to play. I’d also like to see how my family would react to it with a wide range of ages and types of gamers.
(apologies for posting this so late – better late than never I guess)
Set amount of cards based on the number of players. To begin you take turns picking all the cards one at a time (strategy/psychology of the game in paying attention to the cards others choose) There’s also a money pile. Then based on what cards you took, you take action against each other and take whatever money you get from what happened. You do this three times and whoever has the most money wins.
Building the perfect music company – trying to collect the most “talented” artists – you start with base characters and throughout the game build up their strengths (and sometimes weaknesses) to create the most talented group or company of musicians/singers
Society kind of thing where you build your army for world dominance or just your quiet little villages – so like amassing funds, resources, people, homes, etc etc
Collecting design pieces/tiles that you must try to replicate a design but you are picking up pieces every round and can lose certain pieces that don’t allow you to complete the design so it’s a sort of race to complete and gather correct pieces fastest
Hidden Objectives kind of game – there’s something you have to complete but noone knows so you gotta secretly work toward a goal of sorts.
SET UP: Pick the stack that you want to play with and shuffle them with the language NOT in English face up. Lay out all 50 cards in a grid face up
Gameplay:
This is a pretty traditional matching game but obviously instead of remembering where pictures are, you are trying to remember the translation of the words that you are gradually learning throughout the game.
Each turn players attempt to make matches. Every turn, the player flips over two cards.
On their turn, a player flips over a card and reads the translation. They then pick up their second card by trying to find the match to the English word on the back. If the second card does not match the first card THEY PUT BOTH CARDS BACK WHERE THEY ORGINALLY WERE with the NON-English word face up.
FOR EXAMPLE – player 1 flips a card that says “perro” on it. The back reads “dog”. The player then scans the grid trying to see EITHER if they know another word for dog or if a previous player had flipped over the word “dog” before and they remember where it is.
Players take turn attempting to make matches until the grid has been completely matched.
HOW TO WIN:
Players with the most matches wins.
Congrats! You either already know another language or are good at memorizing places on a game board!
possible ALTERNATIVE PLAY:
1. If a matching game seems too boring, here’s another idea to spice it up a little bit.
Instead of taking a turn by trying to find a match by flipping over two cards, there will be an extra “hard” section of words above the matching grid that IF YOU KNOW OR CAN GUESS THE WORD counts as an additional match in your hand. However, guessing wrong does not remove the card from the game but you must reveal your guess and put it back above the grid if you guess incorrectly. The potential then is that other players have the opportunity to steal these bonus cards, narrowing down the meaning.
2. If there is a tie OR just if you want to keep the matches with the NON English words face up and shuffle the card and whoever remembers the most meanings gets an extra point or the number of points for that number of cards guessed right (by the players discretion)
Changes to be made (for the final):
delete the previous alternative endings – they’re not very natural
ADD possible ALTERNATIVE PLAY/ENDING:
At the end of the traditional matching game, shuffle all cards back together and designate one player to flip a card over in front of all players with non-English side face up and whoever correctly remembers (or guesses) the most English translations
create pictures of English words and put translations on all non-english words for people to pronounce
clarify that you take another turn (limit 2 extra turns) after getting a correct match – what to do when there is a tie
comments were made about different versions being fun potentially
NO GOOGLE TRANSLATE
little flags in the corner for design purposes and countries of origin for the words
Thoughts on Playtesting:
I play tested this in class and with my sister and it went similarly both times – i think it flows nicely but could be a lot of fun with different versions – i tried several different alternative endings with my sister which was informative on how i want to “finalize” it – both times people wanted pronunciations for all words which I definitely will do.
languages are a hobby of mine and any “gaming” i usually do by myself has to do with learning languages – i wanted to be able to incorporate this into some of my games in this class since I enjoy them so much and would love to share with others
Traditional Matching Game but with different languages – there are two cards in square of like 100 cards with the same interpretation of the two languages and several players try to remember what they mean and match them and get most matches
2. like TacoCatGoatCheesePizza and War combined but different greetings in languages – each player has a hand of cards and when they match you must shout that greeting and whoever has the closest pronunciation to what it actually means gets that round (have google translate at the ready)
3. Accent game – very simple trying to guess languages by sound – more collaborative with less “winning” just having a good time
4. National Market/Menu Game – each player has a menu/list they must complete by drawing ingredient cards BUT CATCH they’re not in english – there’s also tokens and event cards mixed in to spice it up – you accumulate a hand as you play and place ingredients that match to your menu/list and finish by completing it first and have money and stuff. Each list though is a different language/nationality and you must complete it in that language. So sort of go fish/bartering sort of game
5. For people who already know a little bit of a language, there are different language stacks that basically work as vocab review so obviously is a very niche game since you’d have to have a rudimentary understanding of a language… as many players as possible, single players to collective playing, racing to point out the words fastest.
Carcassonne is a world building game where players take turns placing random tiles and meeples to connect their real estate to gain points.
Was it fun? It was alright
What were the player interactions? Player interactions consisted of sort of chance on what the other people would do and where they would place there tiles.
How long did it take to learn? Not very long
What was the most frustrating moment or aspect of what you just played? As the game progressed, not being able to place meeples on unclaimed land that you didn’t just place
What was your favorite moment or aspect of what you just played? It was simple and kinda cute
Was there anything you wanted to do that you couldn’t? Yes, place meeples on unclaimed land you didn’t just place
If you had a magic wand to wave, and you could change, add, or remove anything from the experience, what would it be? Same as the previous answer
Is this a game you would play again? Maybe, it is a maybe not a yes because it wasn’t quite engaging enough to play a lot
Analyze the game using the 3 act structure. Setup, placing tiles and meeples and accumulating points and land, farming should be the third act but none of use really wanted to do it and count all those points so someone won before we got to act 3
What are the collaborative and or competitive aspects of the game? Collaborative on an unofficial level where you can try to convince people where to put their tiles to either help you or other players, competitive in the fact that well you are trying to simply get the most points and win
What is the game’s metaphor and which of the game’s mechanics standout? The metaphor is around medieval estate collecting and establishing kingdoms, i liked the mechanic of chance of what tile you place and needing it to match up with tiles on all sides.
Camel Back is a chance-based betting game in which players accumulate money by racing camels around a track by rolling dice that are color coordinated to the respective camels.
Was it fun? Yes, it was a chill fun
What were the player interactions? Not too much collaboration but we still interacted in a sense of gauging what other players would do to anticipate the betting
How long did it take to learn? Mmm 15-20 mins maybe
What was the most frustrating moment or aspect of what you just played? It really wasn’t too frustrating
What was your favorite moment or aspect of what you just played? Not having control of the camels was actually a very interesting aspect of the game – just watching them do their thing by chance was fun and then betting with no actual stakes, honestly it felt a lot like Clue but obviously a few different mechanics which made it move easier
Was there anything you wanted to do that you couldn’t? Not that I can think of no it just sorta worked out
If you had a magic wand to wave, and you could change, add, or remove anything from the experience, what would it be? Maybe make the game setup a little easier, it was tricky figuring out where everything went, there were too many different cards that some didn’t seem to matter too much, making them mean more or taking them out completely would be best
Is this a game you would play again? Yes, it was cute and easy and fun
Analyze the game using the 3 act structure. The setup was definitely one and giving the camels their first moves, then every leg of the race was part of act 2 and act 3 began when people started betting on the total winner of the race when the camels got closer to the finish line
What are the collaborative and or competitive aspects of the game? Not really collaborative except for the fact you just have to pay attention to what everyone else is doing, competitive because we are all trying to get as much money as we can by ourselves, there weren’t any teams or anything
What is the game’s metaphor and which of the game’s mechanics standout? The camel metaphor was very fun – having so many different ways to earn money was very well thought out especially the betting cards and having several legs of the race available
