design courses, syllabi, schedules, resources and policies
Was it fun?
Yes
What were the player interactions?
In order to play, you roll a dice and move the corresponding amount of spaces. The color and number rolled has a bid attached to it and every player can bid on the item.
How long did it take to learn?
3-5 Minutes
Would you play it again?
Yes
What are the collaborative and or competitive aspects of the game?
Outbidding the other players and being more strategic.
Was it fun?
Yes
What were the player interactions?
Passing cards in order to pick salad items that we wanted / needed.
How long did it take to learn?
Took maybe 10 minutes, but was still learning as I played.
Would you play it again?
Yes
What are the collaborative and or competitive aspects of the game?
Not many collaborative aspects, definitely a more competitive game.
What is the game’s metaphor and which of the game’s mechanics standout?
The metaphor is all about building a salad, and you can choose colors that correspond for bonus points.
Changes made:
Game Board sized up to be longer and board spaces added to increase the length of the game.
Normal Day and Wager Space added to give downtime on the board, as well as events throughout.
Thoughts:
Throughout making this game, I thought it was a simple idea that worked well. In the end though, it ended up being scrapped due to Skate Skirmish. If I was to come back and adjust the game, I would make the board larger and add more spaces for interaction with other players.
Describe the best game you’ve made this semester in 200 words? Follow Michelle Nephew’s advice.
The best game I’ve made this semester is Skater Skirmish. Compared to my other games, this game stands out as the most complete. While some of my other games struggled to progress beyond the first prototype phase due to playability issues, Skater Skirmish managed to overcome these challenges. The concept was easy with players, and their responses encouraged me to refine it further.
What makes Skater Skirmish special is its accessibility. The gameplay is easy, making it enjoyable for people of all age groups who can move their hands. This inclusivity comes from its easy mechanics and simple rules, which ensures that anyone can learn and play the game. I prioritized simplicity because a more complicated design would have kept younger players or those unfamiliar with board games from playing.
To continue, Skater Skirmish blends fun and strategy with ease. Players are engaged in a game of classic skate, with just enough change to the game to make it interesting. It’s a game I’m proud of because it represents my growth as a designer and a carpenter. By focusing on player enjoyment, I created something that works with a wide audience.
Game designers create concepts of games, while developers actually fully develop them.
Game creating, Prototyping, testing, repeat
It is hard to balance a game because while doing so you must keep the game fair and fun. You have to manage expectations, keeping everything working well.
Every player of my game should believe that they are a struggling person getting by by scratching lottery tickets.
Clear rules, easy mechanics, and intuitive to play.
No intermediary technology, no jargon, dont over complicate, add flavor, don’t write text smarter than your players, keep sentences short, make things visually pleasing, test games, mistakes aren’t the end of the world.
Play testing has helped me develop my game to a different level, since everyone sees my game differently with different issues.
Brayden and Owen
17+
My fraternity brothers on a Saturday night.
What were the player interactions?
Trading, Negotiating, Blocking
Was it fun?
Yes
How long did it take to learn?
15-20 min
Would you play it again?
Yes
Analyze the game using the 3 act structure.
What are the collaborative and or competitive aspects of the game?
Trading resources and building / scoring
What is the game’s metaphor and which of the game’s mechanics standout?
Metaphor for resource management and community building. The trading and building stand out to me.
Was it fun?
Yes, but took a while to start to understand the game and what the different cards do.
What were the player interactions?
The player interactions were the vast majority of the game by implementing new rules such as only being allowed to have so many cards, and how many cards you can draw.
How long did it take to learn?
About 15 minutes to sort of understand the game enough to start.
Would you play it again?
Not specifically zombie fluxx, but I would play other fluxx games in the future.
Analyze the game using the 3 act structure.
In the beginning, there are no rules and the game just starts and goes like normal. In the middle, the game starts to get interesting based on what keepers you have and what rules are going into place. In the end, you start to get more keepers and the game ends when you reach the goal card, which tends to come quickly when a lucky goal comes in place for someone.
What are the collaborative and or competitive aspects of the game?
Collaborative includes placing rules to better the pace of play. But, competitive can be the same by implementing bad rules on the same people to make the game go slower.
What is the game’s metaphor and which of the game’s mechanics standout?
The metaphor is that you are always trying to reach a goal that isn’t reachable at the moment. But eventually, your cards will align and you will reach your goal. Just like real life.
Hungry Hungry Chopsticks
In this game, it has a base sort of like hungry hungry hippos. In the game though, you have to put the small balls in your corner by picking them up with chopsticks. You must pick up the ball and not roll it back to your side. The whole point behind this game is for it to be funny to watch people try and pick up spheres with chopsticks.
Mega Jacks
For a while, I have wanted to create a very large jacks game. Jacks is a simple game that involves you bouncing a ball and grabbing small metal “jacks” before the ball hits the ground. To make this big, you would need a ball roughly the size of a dodgeball, and jacks that are similar sized. When it comes to collecting games, this in an interesting take on a classic game.
Luck of the Lottery
This game is a traditional board game, but the catch is that the only way to collect money is by “scratching” a lottery ticket after each turn. These lottery tickets would just be not scratched on one side and scratched on the other so you may reuse them. Most of the cards would be losers, with some giving a bit of money and some giving a lot.
RMU Runners
This game is more or less a joke (for legal reasons). In this game, all of your players start in one room. You each draw a card from a standard deck of cards to determine order in which you go. If your turn is up, you must run around campus and take parking tickets off of peoples cars so the police force does not administer more tickets. The key is going first because you will have to run farther to find tickets when close by ones run out. The player with the most tickets at the end of the round wins, and you play to the first person to win three rounds.
Ground Hog Hunt
The aim of this game is to collect photos of groundhogs. All players will meet at the Gazebo, and will start the round with a timer for 5 minutes. Each player will run off and attempt to get photos of groundhogs. The player with the most photos of separate groundhogs at the end of the 5 minutes wins. Photos taken withing 5 feet of the groundhog rewards double points for that photo. If you manage to capture a groundhog, you instantly win the game (legally never said this).
Was it fun?
Personally, I thought this game was a lot of fun. It had a lot of strategy involved, which to me is fun.
What were the player interactions?
The player interactions includes us bartering to place pieces in certain spots if we needed them, and placing pieces in spots to make the opponent have a disadvantage.
How long did it take to learn?
This one was pretty easy to learn, but it took a while to understand how the point system worked. The farmers, roads, etc all have different values so I did not understand how bad I was doing at first.
Would you play it again?
No, simply due to the games length.
Analyze the game using the 3 act structure.
In the beginning, you start by placing your first cards and slowly start to build small structures. In the middle, you start to place bigger structures all while screwing other people over. In the end, you finish your structures and the game ends. Once you count your points, the one with the most wins.
What are the collaborative and or competitive aspects of the game?
There aren’t really any ways to collaborate other than working together with another player to finish a structure. For the competitive aspects, it is basically the same in reverse by working with players in order for someone not to finish what they were trying to build.
What is the game’s metaphor and which of the game’s mechanics standout?
The metaphor that I think of is that it is a game of life, and each tile you place represents your future. But each tile you look back on is the past, and it cannot be changed.
The game mechanics that stick out most to me are the builder pieces, which is a nice addition that makes it easier to finish structures. But also, I find it interesting how once the game is coming to an end, everyone is looking for that one specific piece they need, basically gambling on whether or not they will ever find it.
Battle Cups
Battle Cups is a game Owen and I worked on last year, and I still believe that it is flawed and needs a revisit. The concept of the game is that you are playing battleship, but instead of trying to guess exact spots, you are shooting a ping pong ball into the cups. It adds a sense of skill to battleship, which others and I seemed to enjoy last year.
Cup Darts
This game is a teammate game in which you switch positions every turn, while also playing against another team. In this game, it starts by having a dartboard on the ground like a cornhole board, and you have to throw a red solo cup with a dart attached to the bottom at the board. It behaves much like normal darts, but your teammate that did not throw the dart has the chance to throw a ping pong ball at the cup. If the hit the cup, it is a 2x multiplier, and if you make it inside the cup it is a 3x multiplier. You can play this with any traditional dart game, such as cricket or 301.
Structural Integrity
In this game, you are given a deck of cards that are custom made for the game. On each card, is a different structure that you have to attempt to make out of red solo cups. In a separate deck of cards, there is a required weight that your structure has to hold. (EX: One pound, 1/2 pound, etc.). The way you win the round is by your structure being able to withstand the weight you have drawn. First player to 3 rounds won wins. To wrap this game up, why not add a classic sand timer as well.
Towers
In this game, you are given a large stack of red solo cups. The objective of this game is to create the largest or most creative structure out of red solo cups possible. You have 5 minutes in order to make your structure. At the end of the 5 minutes, the person with the largest or most creative structure wins.
Flip Cup Race
In this game, it is much like a normal game of flip cup. But instead, you will line 10 cups on the edge of the table and be on teams of 2. You will start about 10 feet away from the table and when the buzzer sounds, you run to the table and attempt to flip your first cup. If you do not land the cup, you must try again until you do so. If you do land the cup, you must run back and tag your teammates hand to let him go flip a cup. You keep alternating turns until the other team finishes first, or you finish your cups first.
